The Canterbury Tales and Other Works of Chaucer (Middle E...

This is Fragment C of *The Romaunt of the Rose*, a Middle English allegorical poem attributed to Chaucer, itself a translation of the French *Roman de la Rose* — a central text of courtly love tradition in which the pursuit of an idealized beloved (the Rose) is rendered as an elaborate military allegory. The excerpt depicts Love's barons planning a coordinated siege on a castle guarded by personified obstacles — Wicked Tongue, Shame, Fear, and Danger — with allegorical virtues like Franchise, Pity, Hardiness, and Courtesy assigned to attack each gate, while Richesse (Wealth) refuses to participate because the lover has never sought or honored her. A notable digression has the God of Love argue passionately that love bought with money is mere commerce, not true giving — the buyer always loses everything while the seller profits — and that poor lovers are in fact more loyal, stable, and worthy than wealthy ones. The poem then stages the formal induction of Fals-Semblant (False Seeming, i.e., hypocrisy) into Love's service, where he delivers a candid and darkly comic self-confession: he operates by hiding in humble or religious clothing, thriving equally among secular people and within monasteries and convents. This confession launches an extended satirical attack on clerical hypocrisy — friars, monks, and confessors who exploit piety as cover for manipulation — making the excerpt as much a biting piece of estates satire as a romance. Readers interested in medieval allegory, Chaucer's social criticism, or the intersection of courtly love and anticlerical satire will find this fragment particularly rich.

The Canterbury Tales and Other Works of Chaucer (Middle E...

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