The Romance of the Rose

Fiction | Novel/Book in Verse | Adult | Published in 1230

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Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-5

Chapters 6-8

Chapters 9-12

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

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Chapters 4-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 4 Summary

In Jean de Meun’s continuation of the story, the narrator swings wildly between despair and hope but tries to stay loyal to hope. The narrator believes that, without Fair Welcome and the rose, the gifts from Love are useless. He blames Idleness for inviting him into the garden and allowing Love to ensnare him and thinks that Reason was right in saying that Love is foolish. He corrects himself, however, deciding to stay faithful to Love and the rose.

Reason descends from her tower again. She asks if the narrator knows much about Love; he admits that he only knows what Love told him. She decides to teach him about Love. Reason describes the concept of love in a series of paradoxes, such as “hostile peace and loving hatred, disloyal loyalty and loyal disloyalty” (65). The narrator insists that she has only confused him and asks for a new definition.

Reason says that love is a “mental illness” because lovers pursue pleasure without thought for the practical side of sex, i.e., having children. She accuses Youth of being the primary cause of this problem, as Youth encourages people to pursue foolish actions for pleasure. While Old Age fixes these issues, people do not love Old Age, as she lives with Travail and Suffering instead of Delight. Reason insists that passion ruins even good relationships. The narrator criticizes her for asking him to hate others instead of loving them. He asks for a definition of the various kinds of love.

Reason calls him a fool but agrees to educate him. She describes Friendship, the love of “mutual goodwill” between people. Friendship causes people to give up all they have for others. She asks him to give up sexual love for friendship, as friendship is superior and will not cause him pain or death. She then tells him about the love of money. Poor people who live happy, contented lives are more able to love than rich people. She specifically calls out lawyers, physicians, and theologians as victims of greedy love, as they might try to abuse others or their positions to gain money or power. She says that Wealth’s intention is to be used for others and that Wealth will seek revenge on misers who imprison her.

The narrator asks if he can possess anything rightfully. Reason says that he should only be proud of the gifts that he has inside himself instead of external goods. She asks him to renounce Love and serve her. He refuses, insisting that the idealized love she speaks about does not actually exist between individuals. She tells him to love all people generally, and he asks her to choose between Justice and Love, demanding that she prove each point she makes with evidence. Reason uses analogies about Jupiter and Saturn to explain that Love is more important than Justice, as Justice alone causes destruction, but Love is enough for people to live full lives by.

The narrator thanks Reason for her advice but points out that she has said a “shameless” word (“testicles”) while describing love in frank terms. Reason moves on, asking him to come back to the issue later. She insists that she does not want him to abandon love, but merely love that will harm him. He insists that she is lying, and she says, “I will not flatter you; you have not examined the old books in order to defeat me, and you are not a good logician” (88). Reason tells the narrator that, rather than the rose, it would be wiser for him to choose her as his sweetheart. She explains the advantages of this arrangement and tells him not to refuse her, as she can make him like Socrates. She uses an extended metaphor about two forests and two rivers, one fertile and the other dead and poisonous, to explain the differences between passionate and rational love.

She tells another story about Nero, who killed his teacher Seneca because he disliked having to respect him. She also tells a story about Croesus, the king of Lydia, who misunderstood a dream as a blessing when it was really Fortune revealing that she intended to have him hanged. His daughter begged him to give up base behavior, but he refused and was killed. She also tells the story of Manfred, a contemporary king of Sicily, who was killed and subdued by the French king, an act she praises. Each story demonstrates how power and fortune corrupt people. Reason explains that evil is “nothing,” arguing that since God cannot do evil, evil must not truly exist and is instead a lack—the absence of goodness. She insists that if he chooses Reason as his lover, he will never be sad again. She berates him for having forgotten his education in pursuit of Love and begs him to give up Fortune and Love and be like Socrates, who did not care for either one.

The narrator insists that he “would not give three chick-peas for Socrates, however rich he was,” and rejects her proposal (105). He further berates her for using the word “testicles” despite being a lady, insisting that this is proof of her poor virtue. Reason, amused, insists that words like “testicle” and “penis” are perfectly acceptable since they state the truth; she points out that he would have been unhappy with any word she used. The narrator insists that God did not make human language, so she is still acting wrongly. Reason says that God educated her himself; women can call genitals what they want, which includes their proper names. She points out that the narrator clearly wants her to give him a foolish answer, but she refuses to fall for the bait. The narrator forgives her for her use of language but begs her to stop scolding him for his love, as he cannot let it go. Reason leaves him to be sad by himself.

Chapter 5 Summary

The narrator remembers that he can confide in the character Friend and calls on him. Friend immediately comes and asks the narrator to tell him everything that has happened. Friend encourages the narrator, saying that he is sure Fair Welcome will be released in due time if the narrator behaves more carefully. The narrator still despairs and asks Friend for advice.

Friend advises the narrator to stay loyal to Love but to only gaze secretly at Fair Welcome. The narrator should speak kindly to Evil Tongue to appear as if he does not care about Fair Welcome and the rose. Friend’s advice, however, quickly turns to lying—he advises the narrator to use onions to make it look like Love’s pain is making him cry and suggests that he lie about his identity to get letters through. He says there is nothing to lose in begging the gatekeepers to let him in, as he will be either let in or rejected. Friend also advises the narrator to, if necessary, enter the garden and take the rose by force to prove his masculinity, insisting that the protectors of the garden will accept this and that he can beg for mercy if they do not. He says that when the narrator is reunited with Fair Welcome, he should try to imitate him and agree with everything he says since people fall in love with people who meet their every need.

The narrator is indignant at much of this advice and insists that Friend is asking him to be a liar and a hypocrite; he refuses to try to gain the favor of evil people. Friend insists that Evil Tongue cannot be combated openly. No matter what steps the narrator takes, Evil Tongue will only grow in power, even if the narrator has evidence on his side, and this will only lead to Fair Welcome’s death.

The narrator asks for different advice on entering the castle, and Friend agrees but warns that it does not benefit poor people. He advises him to take the road of Lavish Giving, established by Unrestrained Generosity, but warns that he and other poor people are forbidden by Poverty to take that road and that Wealth never escorts anyone back along the same route. Friend emphasizes that all men should try to avoid Poverty, as it only brings hatred from others.

Friend then tells his own story about Poverty, saying that he gave away so much of his own wealth that he now struggles to feed himself. He lost all his friends due to poverty but admits that this was a blessing from Fortune, as none of his friends were real. Friend advises the narrator to give reasonable gifts, like fresh fruit, which wins over strangers without being overly expensive. Friend then provides advice on how to keep the rose after winning it. He warns that “nearly all women take greedily and steal and devour rapaciously” (127), so the narrator should improve his talents and intelligence to impress his lover rather than relying on his looks.

Friend tells an extended story about an imaginary cruel husband and his wife, who he suspects of unfaithfulness. The husband tries to control what his wife does and threatens to beat her until she is ugly if she is cheating. The husband says that women always hide who they are before marriage, yet people accept this, even though they would not accept it if they were buying a horse. The cruel husband goes as far as to claim that honest women are like phoenixes, white crows, or black swans. He tells several stories about men who despised marriage, including the story of Peter Abelard and Sister Heloise, who chose to stay unmarried so that they could pursue intellectual practice without distracting one another. Peter married her anyway despite her protests, but he was castrated as punishment, and he became a monk. The husband praises Heloise for knowing how to “subdue her nature” as a woman.

The cruel husband preaches against external beauty in women, claiming that it is useless because it fails to reflect internal goodness and chastity. He claims that women who adorn themselves are spiting the gift of God’s beauty. The cruel husband also claims that the same is true for men, insisting men should only dress to protect themselves from the weather. The cruel husband cites several examples of heroic men bested by tricky women and berates his wife for her beautiful clothes, saying that they have no value to him when they are used to impress other men.

Friend observes that the cruel husband presumably beats his wife after this and then insists that a woman who is beaten will plot his death or run away. He says that women “know nothing” and will do whatever they wish. Friend says that spouses should be equals and that there should be no authority between a married couple—love relies on freedom to thrive. He says that this is the danger of love; prior to marriage, the man is the servant of the woman, but after marriage, he demands her to be his servant, betraying her and risking her love. The coming of Fraud, Sin, Misfortune, Covetousness, Avarice, Envy, and Poverty all ruined the pure love of the past, forcing men to establish concepts like private property, government, and wealth. This culture led to women becoming property as well, leading to abuse.

Friend advises that if a man discovers that his wife has cheated or wants to cheat, he should approach her kindly. If he sees her having sex, he should pretend that he has not, and he should never read her letters or control her actions. He should never touch her cruelly and should accept any beatings from her, if necessary; if he does hit her, he should immediately make love to her to prove his love and loyalty.

If a man has two lovers, he should never let their paths cross and never give them the same gifts. If a woman is suspicious of cheating, Friend advises that the man should force her to submit to sex to reassure her; if she catches him cheating, he should swear to never do it again and give her gifts and kind words until she forgives him. Friend’s primary rule, however, is that a man should always tell a woman she is beautiful, as every woman “believes that she has sufficient beauty to be worthy of being loved” (152).

The narrator thanks Friend for his advice, which he thinks is better than Reason’s. Pleasant Thought and Pleasant Conversation attend the narrator after Friend leaves, but Pleasant Looks is still lost.

Chapters 4-5 Analysis

Reason’s extensive, detached speech in the fourth chapter of the work alludes in many ways to the Platonic dialogues—not just through her repeated references to Socrates, her chief follower, but also through the genre of the chapter itself. These works, written by Plato in the fourth century BC, utilize various characters, often the philosopher Socrates and one or more of his followers, who discuss varying topics on philosophy, nature, or culture. Many early medieval authors, like Boethius or Augustine, wrote religious works in the same dialogic genre.

Reason’s speech, however, functions as an ironic reversal of a philosophical dialogue. In most classical philosophical dialogues, the educated character interrogates the less educated character to determine their worldview and correct flaws in their reasoning. In Reason’s dialogue, the narrator, who lacks Reason’s wisdom, demands answers from her and inevitably rejects them. In traditional dialogues, Socrates claims to be a man who lacks knowledge, just as the narrator does, but unlike Socrates, the narrator genuinely does lack knowledge and does little to correct this. Nobody learns anything from each other in this chapter, suggesting that Reason is often rejected by those experiencing The Complications of Sexuality and Desire.

One passage of Reason’s speech also provides insight into the gradual rise of professional men in medieval society and the lure of moneymaking, invoking The Tensions Between Nobility and Poverty. She discusses the moral corruption of lawyers, physicians, and theologians, who she claims have all abandoned knowledge for the pursuit of wealth. In claiming that those who pursue wealth become too greedy to experience true love, Reason adds a new dimension to the text’s handling of class dynamics. She asserts that such professional, ambitious men forsake genuine love because they are too busy pursuing profits, which reinforces the ideal of true courtly love as one that is incompatible with purely material and worldly ends.

The theme of Misogyny and Gender Roles in Courtly Love is present in both Reason’s speech and Friend’s, albeit in separate ways. Reason is characterized as perfect and rational, which causes her to reject certain gendered expectations: In a humorous passage, she uses the word “testicles,” which offends the narrator to the point that he cannot take her seriously. The passage pokes fun at the narrator for his inability to receive her words rationally, which, by extension, pokes fun at the social conventions of polite medieval society, which suggested that it was not proper for a refined woman to speak so boldly of bodies and sexuality. Reason suggests that a perfectly rational society would have no reason to establish gender roles or rules of propriety, as all would behave with restraint. Still, the lover’s rejection of Reason implies that this is impossible—gender roles exist because love and passion exist. Rejecting love and passion means getting rid of the differences between men and women beyond their differing capacities to reproduce, which, in the world of Love, is unbearable.

Friend’s speech establishes the counterargument to Reason’s genderless world. Friend’s speech advocates for equality within marriage, but in doing so, he exaggerates gender roles instead of undermining them. While Reason denies the worth of passion and lauds the benefits of rational restraint, Friend depicts passion as all-consuming and irresistible for both men and women. His advice aligns with the more controversial aspects of courtly love traditions, and he even presents such aspects—particularly adultery—in an exaggerated form: According to Friend, adulterous lovers are expected to sneak around and steal time together, and this should be tolerated by betrayed male spouses. He claims that men should take what they want by force, if necessary, which casts men as naturally dominant and sexually unrestrained. Friend’s advice is thus equally detached from the expectations of an ideal Love, as his depiction of love is too animalistic to support the more refined ideals of the courtly love tradition. The narrator must continue his journey to discover the truth, which lies somewhere between both Friend’s and Reason’s extreme stances.