Le roman de la rose

so exact on the rhyme that often, to satisfy it, they would mangle or change the words of our Language. Thus, Jean de Meun makes no difficulty in putting adultire for adultere adultery, or reculier for reculer to retreat, because it was a matter of rhyming the former with dire to say, and the latter with séculier secular. He even took it into his head, for greater ease, to cut a word in two: truth be told, it is the only time I have noticed this license. Here it is for its singularity:

Neither past, present, nor fu-
And also I tell you that the fu-
ture will never have presence,
So delectable is permanence.
The poet has split the word "future" into "fu" at the end of one line and "ture" at the start of the next to force a rhyme with "fu" (was).

These sorts of licenses or negligences, as one may wish to name them, did not prevent this Book from being esteemed in the past, and people of wit should not, for that reason, refuse it the preference it deserves over the Poets of its time.

Critique of this Romance.

But the consideration of the illustrious adversaries this Romance has had would alone determine me to give it more es-

esteem than the others. As there are only people without merit who are not worthy of having enemies, there are only mediocre works, without taste or elevation, that do not have the honor of being contradicted. Fortunately, the Romance of the Rose has had detractors: Gerson, Chancellor of the Church of Paris and the greatest light of that University, wrote against this Poem. I would only ambition the glory of being an Author to have such famous Antagonists. He attacks it from the side of morals. Perhaps he had not penetrated its system and economy. Jean de Meun also had an illustrious adversary in the person of Martin Franc, Secretary to Pope Felix V. It is against this Romance that he wrote The Champion of Ladies original: "Le Champion des Dames"; a book in which, besides a Poetry quite refined for the time, one still finds many singularities and even historical insights for those who know how to put them to work.

The Romance of the Rose Moralized.

Finally, a complete honor has been paid to this Romance: it has been moralized and put