Observations placeholder
Romance of the Rose - Meeting lady Reason
Identifier
007943
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Fascinating because Reason here is personified as female. The Intellect in most other fables is masculine.
The implication is that Reason is helpful, but Memory is not.
A description of the experience
Romance of the Rose – translated by Frances Horgan
The lady from her high vantage point in the tower looked down and saw me … the lady’s name was Reason, and descending from her tower she came directly to me.
She was neither young nor old, neither too tall nor too short, neither too thin nor too fat. The eyes in her head shone like two stars and she wore a crown upon her head; she looked like a person of importance.
It was apparent from her form and her face that she was made in paradise, for Nature could not have fashioned anything so perfectly proportioned. Know that if the books do not lie, she was made in the firmament by God in his own image and likeness and that gave her such virtue that she has power and authority to keep a man from folly, provided that he be such as to trust in her.