The openings of bothThe Thrissilland theTargeevoke theRoman de la
Rose, which theTargeabbreviates with delightful insouciance (“I raise and
by a rosere did me rest,”B 59 , 3 ).^33 The Thrissillmoves through comparable
layers of allusion, and as it does so it dissolves the punctuality of beginning
into a series of leave-takings. May begins its rule, impelling“the birdis
to begyn thair houris”(B 52 , 5 ), because March“wes with variand windis
past”( 1 ) and April has“Tane leif at Nature”( 3 ). The spring landscape is
outside, but in the dreamer’s chamber it is repeated, acted out by person-
ifications. Aurora looks in at his window with an attendant lark who exhorts
lovers to celebrate the“lusty morrow”( 14 ), while May,“In weid depaynt
of mony diuers hew”( 16 ) and“flouris forgit new”( 18 ), is still more pressing:
“Slugird,”scho said,“Awalk annone for schame, sluggard awake
And in my honour sum thing thow go wryt.
The lork hes done the mirry day proclame,
To rais vp luvaris with confort and delyt,
ʒit nocht incresis thy curage to indyt,
Quhois hairt sum tyme hes glaid and blisfull bene,
Sangis to mak vndir the levis grene.” ( 22 – 28 )This poet, however, sullenly refuses to fit in with the generic frame
imposed. The birds“haif moir caus to weip and plane thair sorrow”( 31 );
the air outside is“nocht holsum nor benyng”( 32 ) and“Lord Eolus”( 33 )is
still master in this season. This narrator has come to resemble the obstrep-
erous nightingale ofThe Kingis Quair, a dysfunctional stage property who
remains silent when he should sing.^34
May’s response is to encourage the dreamer again, this time alluding to a
prior promise not represented within the poem:
Thow did promyt, in Mayis lusty quhyle
For to discryve the ros of most plesance. ( 38 – 39 )Fradenburg observes that this requires the poet-dreamer to rewrite a
desire which without the sovereign demand has fallen into lassitude:
“once desire coincided with expectation, devotion, with‘honoring’the
sovereign,”but now it is disconnected from fulfillment,floating in empty
space ( 135 ). At this point, however, political codings are in abeyance. The
“variand windis”may well hint at past political instabilities, just as the
“ros of most plesance”may“be”Margaret Tudor, but thesefigures are
not about to disclose their meaning yet. May’s invitation rather directs
this crabbed lover towards two other objects. One is an already eroticized
garden where–to recall David Hult’s description of theRoman de la Rose–
“the relationship between the entire allegoricalpaysageand the woman’s
Beginnings: André and Dunbar 33