Le roman de la rose

a year or two before.
Thus, given the prejudice that existed
then, this Order was not to be cited
as a very regular body. It is
nevertheless what Jean de Meun does,
when he says:

(1) Verse 12132.

(2) Precept.
(3) Endowed.
(4) Citeaux.
(5) St. Benedict.
(6) Regular Canons.
(7) St. John of Jerusalem.
(8) Templars.

If he entered (1) according to the rule (2)
Of the Scripture into an Abbey,
Which was furnished with its own goods, (3)
As are now these white Monks (4)
These black ones (5) and these regular Canons, (6)
Those of the Hospital (7) those of the Temple, (8)
For I can well speak of them as an example.

This is the most modern of the historical
facts by which one can judge
the time when this Romance was made. All
the other points of modern history
scattered in this work extend
from the year 1100 until the time that
we have just marked. Jean de
Meun was young when he made this
work; he warns us of it himself in
general terms at the beginning
of his codicil:

(1) Composition/Work.

(2) Taken pleasure.

I made in my youth many a work (1) out of
vanity,
In which many people have many times
taken pleasure. (2)

And

as we find elsewhere that
it was at the end of his childhood, we
believe that it could be toward his
twenty-second year. It is the time
to practice Romances.

If it is true, as one cannot
doubt, that Jean de Meun finished his
Romance before 1305, it is no less
certain that Guillaume de Lorris
died around the year 1260: that is to say, more
than forty years before Jean de
Meun undertook the continuation,
on which he would have spent no less
than three or four years. For whatever
facility one has, one could not
take less time to make more than
eighteen thousand verses that this
continuation contains. Here are the very
words of the Romance, on which the
reasoning I have just made is
supported. It is good to know that
it is the God of Love whom the Author
makes speak as a Prophet:

And then will come Jean Clopinel, (1)
With a noble heart, with a joyful heart, (2)
Who will be born on the Loire at Meun....
He will hold the Romance so dear,
That he will want to complete it all, (3)
If time and place can come to him.

(1) Verses 11139 and 11158.

(2) Joyous.
(3) Finish.

For