Of face, of body avenaunt. 
 I wot no lady so pleasaunt. 
 She were worthy forto bene
 An empresse or crowned quene.

You can read for yourselves the characters, and can follow the simple action which owes its slight interest only to the constant effort of the dreamer to attain his ideal,—­the Rose,—­and owes its charm chiefly to the constant disappointment and final defeat.  An undertone of sadness runs through it, felt already in the picture of Time which foreshadows the end of Love—­the Rose—­and her court, and with it the end of hope:—­

Li tens qui s’en va nuit et jor,
 Sans repos prendre et sans sejor,
 Et qui de nous se part et emble
 Si celeement qu’il nous semble
 Qu’il s’arreste ades en un point,
 Et il ne s’i arreste point,
 Ains ne fine de trespasser,
 Que nus ne puet neis penser
 Quex tens ce est qui est presens;
 S’el demandes as clers lisans,
 Aincois que l’en l’eust pense
 Seroit il ja trois tens passe;
 Li tens qui ne puet sejourner,
 Ains vait tous jors sans retorner,
 Com l’iaue qui s’avale toute,
 N’il n’en retourne arriere goute;
 Li tens vers qui noient ne dure,
 Ne fer ne chose tant soit dure,
 Car il gaste tout et menjue;
 Li tens qui tote chose mue,
 Qui tout fait croistre et tout norist,
 Et qui tout use et tout porrist.

The tyme that passeth nyght and daye. 
 And restelesse travayleth aye,
 And steleth from us so prively,
 That to us semeth so sykerly
 That it in one poynt dwelleth never,
 But gothe so fast, and passeth aye

That there nys man that thynke may
 What tyme that now present is;
 Asketh at these clerkes this,
 For or men thynke it readily
 Thre tymes ben ypassed by. 
 The tyme that may not sojourne
 But goth, and may never returne,
 As water that down renneth ay,
 But never drope retourne may. 
 There may no thing as time endure,
 Metall nor earthly creature: 
 For alle thing it frette and shall. 
 The tyme eke that chaungith all,
 And all doth waxe and fostered be,
 And alle thing distroieth he.

The note of sadness has begun, which the poets were to find so much
more to their taste than the note of gladness.  From the “Roman de la
Rose” to the “Ballade des Dames du Temps jadis” was a short step for
the Middle-Age giant Time,—­a poor two hundred years.  Then Villon
woke up to ask what had become of the Roses:—­Ou est la tres sage
Helois
 Pour qui fut chastie puis moyne,
 Pierre Esbaillart a Saint Denis? 
 Pour son amour ot cest essoyne.

Et Jehanne la bonne Lorraine
 Qu’ Englois brulerent a Rouan;
 Ou sont elles, Vierge Souvraine? 
 Mais ou sont les neiges dantan?

Where is the virtuous Heloise,
 For whom suffered, then turned monk,
 Pierre Abelard at Saint-Denis? 
 For his love he bore that pain.