'Qui prendroit, biau filz, ung chaton
Qui onques rate ne raton
Véu n'auroit, puis fust noris
Sans jà véoir ras ne soris,
Lonc tens par ententive cure
De délicieuse pasture,
Et puis véist soris venir,
N'est riens qui le péust tenir,
Se l'en le lessoit eschaper,
Qu'il ne l'alast tantost haper.'
183. This is taken from a different part of Le Roman altogether, and is
founded on a different argument, viz. the perversity of women's choice, as
noticed in ll. 198-200 below. See Le Rom. de la Rose, 7799-7804:--
'Le vaillant homme arriere boute
Et prent le pire de la route:
Là norrit ses amors, et couve
Tout autresinc cum fait la louve,
Cui sa folie tant empire,
Qu'el prent des lous tretout le pire.'
_vileins kinde_, nature of a villain, a villainous or base disposition.
Practically, _vileins_ has here the force of an adjective, and came to be
so regarded, as shewn by the formation from it of the adv. _vileinsly_,
which occurs in I. 154, and elsewhere. Similarly, the gen. case _wonders_
became the adj. _wonders_, which was gradually turned into _wondrous_; see
_Wondrous_ in my Etym. Dictionary.
This adj. _vileyns_, with the sense of 'villainous,' is unnoticed in [441]
Halliwell and Stratmann. Yet Chaucer uses it often, as the reader may see
for himself. See D. 1158, 1268, I. 556, 631, 652, 715, 802, 854, 914; and
hence _vileinsly_, adv., I. 154, 279, Rom. Rose, 1498.