matter which may seem but little connected with
criticism of life, arranged in a form completely out of fashion. But
they, beyond all question, contain also the first complete
presentation of a scheme, a mode, an atmosphere, which for centuries
enchained, because they expressed, the poetical thought of the time,
and which, for those who can reach the right point of view, can
develop the right organs of appreciation, possess an extraordinary,
indeed a unique charm. I should rank this first part of the _Roman de
la Rose_ high among the books which if a man does not appreciate he
cannot even distantly understand the Middle Ages; indeed there is
perhaps no single one which on the serious side contains such a
master-key to their inmost recesses.

[Sidenote: _Its capital value._]

To comprehend a Gothic cathedral the _Rose_ should be as familiar as
the _Dies Irae_. For the spirit of it is indeed, though faintly
"decadent," even more the mediaeval spirit than that of the Arthurian
legend, precisely for the reason that it is less universal, less of
humanity generally, more of this particular phase of humanity. And as
it is opposed to, rather than complementary of, the religious side of
the matter in one direction, so it opposes and completes the satirical
side, of which we have heard so much in this chapter, and the purely
fighting and adventurous part, which we have dealt with in others, not
excluding by any means in this half-reflective, half-contrasting
office, the philosophical side also. Yet when men pray and fight, when
they sneer and speculate, they are constrained to be very like
themselves and each other. They are much freer in their dreams: and
the _Romance of the Rose_, if it has not much else of life, is like it
in this way--that it too is a dream.

As such it quite honestly holds itself out. The author lays it down,
supporting himself with the opinion of another "qui ot nom macrobes,"
that dreams are quite serious things. At any rate he will tell a dream
of his own, a dream which befell him in his twentieth year, a dream
wherein was nothing

"Qui avenu trestout ne soit
Si com le songes racantoit."

And if any one wishes to know how the romance telling this dream shall
be called--

"Ce est li Rommanz de la Rose,
Ou l'ars d'amorz est tote enclose."

[Sidenote: _The rose-garden._]

The poem itself opens with a description of a dewy morn in May, a
description then not so hackneyed as, chief