The Rebirth of Naturalism j 297297 297
In a radical departure from the tradition of courtly love, Jean de Meun’s Lover impreg-
nates the Rose:This much more I’ll tell you: at the end,
When I dislodged the bud, a little seed
I spilled just in the center, as I spread
The petals to admire their loveliness,
Searching the calyx to its inmost depths,
As it seemed good to me. It there remained
And scarcely could unmingle from the bud.
The consequence of all this play of mine
Was that the bud expanded and enlarged.The Lover of the anonymous seventy- eight line conclusion of the Romance went no further
than to shower his Rose with kisses. Jean de Meun’s version, on the other hand, makes it quite
clear that the constraints of courtly love have been breached. The Rose is no longer simply the
symbol of the Lady; it symbolizes her vulva and womb. When the Lover finally gains access
to his fair rose, he wastes no time in consummating his love, and, shortly thereafter is pleased
to report the biological result. Lest anyone take offence, de Meun ends his racy narrative by
invoking the age- old cop- out: “Then morning came, and from my dream at last I woke.”^21Deconstructing “Deflower ing”
In “The Romance of the Rose,” the Lover’s “plucking” of the rose is equivalent to
“deflowering” it, although this particular figure of speech does not appear in the poem.
The precise origin of the verb “to deflower” (in the sexual sense) is unknown, although
the idea can be traced to Roman times. Because classical authors restricted the definition
of the flower to the petals, “deflowering” simply meant plucking the petals from a flower.
A prime example of this usage is a poem (no. 62) by the first- century bce Roman poet
Catullus, in which a girl who loses her virginity is compared to a flower without petals:When a flower grows secure within a fenced garden,
unknown to grazing livestock, not uprooted by any plough,
a flower which the breezes nurture,
the sun strengthens, the rain raises,
many boys, many girls desire it,
this same flower, once it has been plucked
by a slender fingernail and lost its petals (defloruit),
no boys, no girls want it, so a young girl,
as long as she remains untouched,
remains dear to her own;
but when her body has been corrupted
and she has lost her chaste flower,
remains neither pleasing to boys nor dear to girls.