from The Romance of the Rose

JEAN DE MEUN

The Romance of the Rose was the most popular literary work of the 1200s. Reading this excerpt, I think you’ll understand why. It was started in the first half of the century by a relatively conservative Frenchman, Guillaume de Lorris, who died having written only four thousand lines. Forty years later, the poem was taken up again by a saucy wisecrack, Jean de Meun, who employed Lorris’ Christian allegorical frame and added eighteen thousand more lines to sneak in some seriously scandalous content. The crazy thing is: he got away with it. A hundred years later, when Christine de Pisan, France’s first professional woman writer, started a letter campaign to complain about the Romance’s explicit discussions of male genitalia, she was attacked by the top religious figures of the century. Somehow the Romance was accepted, and copies of it spread around Europe, influencing the greatest writers of the day (Chaucer translated it, Dante adapted it, and everybody stole from it).

The passage that follows is from the end, when the main character, the Good Lover, finally gets the chance to pluck the allegorical rose he’s been after for the whole book. Now a case might be made that the Romance ’s rose is no ordinary rose, and that the Lover’s staff and sack are not just for walking and carrying, but if you, with your lascivious leanings, detect any sexual innuendo in the following scene (gasp!), I need only remind you that it is meant to represent the heart of a good Christian embracing the true teaching of the Church. And naughty you if you think otherwise!

After that, I made my way like a loyal lover
Toward the beautiful aperture,
The goal of all my pilgrimage.

With all my effort, I brought with me
A scrip and a staff, so stiff and sturdy…
Quite well-made, of supple skin without a seam.
Nor was it empty. Nature, who gave it to me,
Had placed with great care two hammers therein . . .

I tell you truly, I love my scrip and hammers
Better even than my lute and harp;
I was honored that Nature gave me such fine ones,
And learned to use them wise and well.
Nature also gave me my staff
And I learned to polish it before I could even read . . .
It makes me happy to gaze on it, and, feeling so,
I thank Nature for her present.
It has comforted me in many places; I always carry it,
And it always serves me well.
Do you know what I do?
When I am on a journey
And happen upon a hidden place,
I thrust my staff into dark ditches,
Or test the depth of deep fords.
Some I find so deep,
Or with banks so far apart,
That it would be less trouble to swim two miles
In the sea . . .

Now let us leave such wide roads
To those who like to travel them,
And let those of us who prefer footpaths to cart roads
Follow those more joyously . . .
I had a great desire to touch the relics,
And with my staff unsheathed,
I, a happy, vigorous lad,
Knelt between the two pillars,
For I had great desire to adore
With devout and pious heart,
The beautiful statue, so worthy of devotion . . .

I lifted the curtain a bit
That covered the relics,
Wishing to approach the statuary
That I knew was close to the relics.
I wanted to kiss it devoutly,
And to push within its sheath,
And place myself there with full assurance;
Entering with my staff with the sack hanging behind.
I thought I’d be able to poke in easily,
But when I tried, it popped back out.
I tried again, but to no avail. It always popped back.
There was no way I could get it in,
For, I soon discovered, there was an inner barrier,
That I felt but could not see . . .

I had to attack it vigorously . . .
But finally found a narrow passage
That I might enter. With my staff,
I battered the barrier, hoping to make my way in,
But I couldn’t even get half way.
I was frustrated that I could make no headway,
Nor find a way to go any further . . .
It was clear I was the first to try to pass,
It was not so well known as yet to collect tolls from other travelers.
I don’t know if anyone else has enjoyed it as much since,
But for me I loved it so much I could scarcely believe it . . .
At last, I spurted a little seed on the bud, having
Touched it to play with the petals . . .
All the seed got so mixed together,
And that’s how I made the tender rosebush widen.

—translated by Jack Murnighan