Page:Romance of the Rose (Ellis), volume 2.pdf/15



Reason now abandons the Lover, leaving him all disconsolate, and he determines to seek the friend who had ere this given him comfort and advice. Suddenly, however, his friend appears and inquires the cause of his grief and desolation. He tells how that Fair-Welcome is imprisoned for no other crime than that he had helped him to snatch a kiss from the Rose. Hereupon his friend at considerable length instructs him how he may by various arts corrupt and deceive the gaolers who guard Fair-Welcome, and set him at liberty.

The Lover recoils, horrified and shocked, at the loose code of morality propounded by his friend. Never, he exclaims, will he be guilty of hypocrisy and deception, but is anxious to be permitted to defy Evil-Tongue face to face. His friend assures him that this would be the extreme of folly; Evil-Tongue would overwhelm Fair-Welcome, and his grief and misery would be more profound than that which fell upon Charlemagne when Roland lost his life at Roncesvalles through the treachery of Geneion. But, exclaims the Lover, I should like to hang VOL. II.