54 pages • 1 hour read
The Romance of the Rose
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Chapters 6-8Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 6 Summary
The narrator sees a beautiful lady, Wealth, and her unnamed lover sitting under an elm tree and approaches them. He asks to travel along the road of Lavish Giving that she guards to the castle, but she refuses, saying she does not know him. She then warns him that anyone who travels on that road will suffer immensely under Unrestrained Generosity, who gives them to Poverty, who in turn lets them die of hunger. The narrator asks to travel on the road a second time, but Wealth calls him stupid and refuses. The narrator leaves and continues to wander the garden.
During his wandering, the narrator speaks kindly to Evil Tongue and maintains his loyalty to Love, who eventually visits him again. Love berates him for considering abandoning him for Reason, and the narrator begs for mercy. Love compliments him on his loyalty but asks the narrator to repeat the commandments of Love, which he does.
Reassured, Love summons his armies to free Fair Welcome from the castle. Love gives a speech to his army, commending them to fight Jealousy well to free Fair Welcome. Love explains that they must assist Guillaume de Lorris (the narrator) but that de Lorris’s story will be completed by Jean Chopinel (the second author). Love begs the goddess of childbirth to ensure that Chopinel is born safely so that he can complete the dream.
After this speech, the barons conclude that everyone except for Wealth is willing to attack the castle since Wealth dislikes the narrator. Love swears to punish Wealth if she does not help them and says that he punishes all rich men who fall under his control, while he loves the poor men who swear allegiance to him, despite their lack of wealth. The barons explain their plan of attack and who in their company will attack each gate. They ask that Love’s mother, Venus, help them out, but Love explains that he cannot control her actions and does not want to bother her.
Each member of the army is noble, except for Constrained Abstinence and her companion False Seeming, child of Fraud and Hypocrisy. The troops beg Love to forgive False Seeming; Love agrees and makes him the Lord of Low Life. He asks False Seeming to tell the troops about his life. False Seeming tells the troops that he can be found in the “world or in the cloister” (169), particularly among religious hypocrites. Love interrupts him to ask if true faith can exist among secular people, which False Seeming affirms, saying, “Religion consists in having a right intention” (171). False Seeming claims to inhabit every religious order and sect regardless of beliefs or even gender.
False Seeming claims that poverty and wealth can both ruin a man and discusses how an able-bodied man should never beg but instead should work to earn a living. He gives several special cases for men who can give up wealth or work to beg—a man who does not have skills, a man who is ill or too old or young to work, a man who has never worked and needs to learn to work, an unemployed man, a man who is not paid enough, and a man who is trying to do religious work but cannot make enough money doing so to survive.
Love berates False Seeming for not having faith in God, which False Seeming agrees with; he says that he does not respect anyone and will rob from anyone, rich or poor, if he can. He discusses how he manipulates those in power, particularly religious power. He then says that he is a servant of the Antichrist and that he and his fellows punish heretics harshly. He discusses the Antichrist’s plans for the end of the world and how he will use his skills as a liar and a trickster to provoke chaos in his name. False Seeming brings up the Eternal Gospel, a contemporary religious heresy and scandal that provoked France into a religious uproar. He finishes his speech by insisting that he will readily abandon Love if he is treated badly.
Love is pleased with the speech and binds False Seeming to an oath, despite it being against his nature. Love and the army march to the castle and attack. False Seeming and Abstinence attack Evil Tongue by appearing as holy people. Evil Tongue allows them to take shelter and say whatever they wish. Abstinence berates him for his lies about the narrator and Fair Welcome and tells him that he will go to hell if he does not change his ways. Evil Tongue insists that he has not lied.
They convince Evil Tongue to get on his knees and repent, but False Seeming grabs him, cuts out his tongue, and throws his body in the ditch. They infiltrate the castle and strangle the drunken soldiers guarding it. Nobody mourns or gives Mass for Evil Tongue, even Jealousy and her attendants, who speak badly of him even though his death weakens their strength significantly.
Chapter 7 Summary
Courtesy, Largesse, False Seeming, and Abstinence rush into the courtyard and confront the Old Woman, Fair Welcome’s guard. They ask for Fair Welcome to come join them in the garden or at least say something to the narrator. The Old Woman says that she would, if not for Evil Tongue’s report to Jealousy, and they assure her that Evil Tongue is dead in the ditch. She reluctantly agrees to let the narrator in to greet Fair Welcome but warns him to not let anyone see him.
The Old Woman finds Fair Welcome in the tower, gloomy and brooding. She shares the news of the narrator’s approach and gives him a chaplet, or headdress, from him. Fair Welcome refuses the chaplet out of fear of Jealousy. The Old Woman assures him that he can lie, and Fair Welcome takes the chaplet and feels happier for it. After admiring himself in the mirror, Fair Welcome listens to the Old Woman’s manipulative advice on love.
The Old Woman says that she was once incredibly beautiful but very foolish, but she now understands the world and love better than before. She once disregarded men and used them, but she eventually grew too old to draw their attention. She intends to use Fair Welcome to avenge herself. She teaches him the Commandments of Love but advises him that the last ones—to be generous and have only one love—are asking for too much. She tells him to sell his heart for a high price and take all that he can from others. She says that loving loyally is a lie and that even the gods do not do it; she cites several examples from mythology and the history of women who were betrayed by their lovers as evidence that loving only one person does not work and that women should not trust men under any circumstances, although they should try to gain as many lovers as possible.
The Old Woman then provides beauty advice, saying that women should use false hair and headpieces to enhance their beauty, as well as expose as much skin as possible if they have good skin. She says that women should keep their chambers clean, never speak after eating if their breath is bad, laugh politely with her teeth hidden, cry on command but properly, work hard in the house, and be the last to sit at the table. A woman should have proper table manners, not get drunk, not fall asleep at the table, and seek love while she is still young and desirable. She further says women should not hide themselves at home but should go out in public in beautiful clothes. When a woman has gathered several lovers, she should balance them carefully so that they don’t discover each other and then take all their money.
The Old Woman insists that women are meant to be free, just like men, and that marriage is a way of trapping women. The Old Woman argues that Nature is stronger than Nurture, so all people will seek their freedom, and nobody should blame them for it. It is nature for every man to want every woman and vice versa, and only fear and shame prevent people from getting what they want. Couples should not mind if their lover is seeing other people but should still take pains to keep their extramarital relationships secret. She then advises Fair Welcome to keep all the gifts he receives, saying that she wishes she had used her time more wisely and amassed more wealth while she was still beautiful.
Chapter 8 Summary
Fair Welcome thanks the Old Woman for her lessons but tells her that he has no interest in love or possessions; he only wishes to become more courteous. He reaffirms his love for the narrator and asks to see him but demands to know that they will be safe from Jealousy, who would kill them both if she saw them together. The Old Woman prepares a secret place for them and goes to give the narrator the good news.
The narrator follows her instructions and goes to the back door, which she leaves unlocked for him. Fair Welcome thanks him for the chaplet, and the narrator insists that he will do anything for Fair Welcome; Fair Welcome returns the sentiment. The narrator immediately asks for the rose, but before he can take it from Fair Welcome, Rebuff appears. Rebuff, Fear, and Shame grab the narrator and force him away, insisting that Fair Welcome did not intend for him to have the rose and that the narrator deceived him and intended to hurt him.
The narrator begs the trio to imprison him alongside Fair Welcome, but Rebuff insists that that would be like putting a fox in a henhouse. They declare their intention to kill Fair Welcome for letting people have the roses so easily. The narrator retorts that Fair Welcome has done nothing wrong and that they are wrong for imprisoning him, but they begin to beat him up.
Love’s troops save his life. The narrator promises to describe how each person fought and calls for the reader to pay attention and “courteously contradict” anything wrong inside his account. He also asks for women to accept that his depiction of women is intended to instruct. He also insists that he does not mean to attack anyone, but people might be hurt by his words regardless.
Generosity of Spirit uses her lance and shield against Rebuff and his club of Refusal. Rebuff shatters the lance into pieces and then insults and beats Generosity, who begs for mercy. He refuses, but Pity is angered by his refusal and takes up her weeping dagger against him. She stabs him repeatedly and weakens him with her tears. Shame threatens Pity with her sword. Delight produces his sword of pleasant life and shield of ease and attacks Shame in turn, but Shame nearly kills him; he is saved by Discretion, a fierce warrior with a silent sword. Fear takes her sword, named Suspicion of Ostentation, and tries to kill Discretion, but Boldness saves him, only to be nearly killed by Fear, who agrees to spare his life. Security advances on Fear with her sword and tries to kill her, but Fear is a better fighter and avoids the blow. They attack each other and end up grabbing each other by the temples and grappling by hand.
The God of Love worries about his warriors and sends Generosity of Spirit and Pleasant Looks to find Venus while he makes a truce for 10 to 12 days. The two messengers go to Venus’ home and are welcomed grandly. Venus is hunting in the woods with Adonis, teaching him how to hunt. She advises Adonis to be cautious and even cowardly against strong creatures and to only hunt things that are safe, like rabbits and deer, rather than wolves and bears. Adonis does not listen and dies at the tusks of a boar, causing Venus to grieve. The narrator insists that this is a valuable lesson about listening to your lover.
Venus prepares for war. Love has already begun the war again, ignoring the truce. The army shoots arrows of promises at Rebuff’s wall of refusals. Venus is furious that Chastity is winning the war. She and Love discuss the value of love and swear on it before returning to the battlefield.
Chapters 6-8 Analysis
This section of the work shows the narrator’s pursuit of the castle and the beginning of Love’s assault on it. While most of the work is written from the perspective of de Lorris himself—as he is the narrator—a passage in this section breaks the fourth wall of the piece and highlights the dual authorship (See: Background) in a metatextual examination of the work’s own composition. De Meun writes a long passage in the voice of Love, announcing that he will continue de Lorris’s work after de Lorris’s death and lauding his own virtues.
This passage serves several rhetorical purposes. By describing himself as a worthy successor to de Lorris, de Meun is both legitimizing his expansion of someone else’s work and distancing himself from the actual words on the page. The “work” is de Lorris’s—the opinions on the page are intended to be a reproduction of what de Lorris would have written, even if they are not and cannot be. De Meun is proving his own legitimacy by claiming that de Lorris, through Love, would have wanted him to continue the story. This is meant to help the reader understand the two authors and the fact that the work is intended as a cohesive piece.
The Tensions Between Nobility and Poverty appear in two significant respects in this section. First, the narrator encounters Wealth guarding a road that leads to the castle, which the narrator longs to reach as quickly as possible. The road is called Lavish Giving, suggesting that the narrator can take that road only by ruining himself through bestowing gifts and favors on others. Wealth’s warning that if he takes the road, he will soon end up caught by Unrestrained Generosity, and then Poverty, implies that liberality and charity must be exercised with caution. In the second instance, False Seeming also addresses the dangers of wealth and poverty by claiming that both can lead to a man’s ruin: He thus emphasizes the importance of working, if a man is capable of doing so, to avoid the dangers and discomforts of poverty.
False Seeming’s speech also examines hypocrisy and honesty, introducing some more overtly religious commentary into the text. He provides a critique of those who, despite belonging to religious orders or outwardly appearing to be people of piety, are actually insincere. False Seeming, as one of the embodiments of hypocrisy, pontificates on his loyalty to the Antichrist, a reference to verses like Matthew 7:15, which states that servants of the Antichrist will infiltrate the Church like wolves in sheep’s clothing. False Seeming’s criticism of religious hypocrisy echoes a common theme in medieval literature, which frequently depicted friars and other members of the clergy as lustful, hypocritical, and scheming for their own self-aggrandizement instead of upholding their religious duties.
Although False Seeming’s speech concerns religious hypocrisy, it also invokes the topic addressed by Friend in his earlier speech, as Friend advises the narrator to embrace dishonesty if necessary to win his love. Thus, while much of False Seeming’s discussion centers around the Church, it also echoes Friend’s interest in false appearances in navigating The Complications of Sexuality and Desire. False Seeming’s successful slaughter of Evil Tongue at the chapter’s end implies that some measure of hypocrisy is necessary to succeed in love, suggesting that all lovers must, to some extent, dissemble to avoid harsh gossip.
This theme of false appearances extends into the next chapter, where the Old Woman gives an extended speech about how women should pursue beauty by any means possible, reflecting Misogyny and Gender Roles in the Traditions of Courtly Love. The Old Woman says, “In short, if [a woman] is aware of any fault, she must cover it, unless she is a fool” (205). The Old Woman’s advice suggests that women can only succeed in gaining the upper hand in the game of courtly love if they are aware of how best to use their advantages and disguise anything that could be to their detriment, such as flaws in appearance. In this way, the Old Woman presents false appearances and duplicity as essential tools for a woman’s advancement.
Significantly, the Old Woman’s advice is much like Friend’s in terms of its worldliness and cynicism. Like Friend, the Old Woman suggests that infidelity is commonplace and should be used to one’s own advantage: A woman should tolerate her lover’s affairs while secretly conducting illicit affairs of her own. The Old Woman’s view of love is transactional: In telling Fair Welcome to only give his affection to those who are prepared to give him gifts and wealth, she suggests that woman can only gain by love if they are prepared to be motivated more by material gains than seeming affection or loyalty. Since the Old Woman believes that both men and women wish to have many lovers, she scoffs at the idea that any lover could ever be genuinely trustworthy or faithful.
The Old Woman’s speech provides a satirical view of the conventions of courtly love. She invokes stereotypes about women common in the medieval period—that they are by nature hypersexual, scheming, prone to lying, and greedy for beautiful things—to undermine the often-idealized vision of women in courtly literature. Yet she also suggests that women can and should use their own wits and agency to derive tangible benefits from their suitors. In presenting this advice to Fair Welcome, the Old Woman thus simultaneously uses gender stereotypes while also mocking and subverting them.
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