Summary
In the first stanza, the speaker praises Rosamond as the shrine of all beauty, and claims that she is encircled by beauty just like medieval maps of the world were encircled by water. He goes on to compare her to a glorious crystal, and claims that her round red cheeks are like rubies. Her beauty makes her merry and playful, and the speaker announces that when he watches her dance, the joy of seeing her makes the wound of love hurt less, even though she doesn’t interact with him.
In the second stanza, he goes on to say that although he sometimes weeps over his love, the sadness never overcomes him because her small and sweet voice overwhelms him with “joy and bliss.” He therefore enjoys being bound by love, because just loving from afar is enough.
In the final stanza, the speaker says that he is more wound up and immersed in love than a fish cooked in sauce. He reasons from the depth of his love that he is a reincarnation of the famous love hero Tristan, who was similarly enamoured of a woman he could not be with. Although his love will never be returned, he still feels the pleasure of love. Regardless of what Rosamond does, he will remain enchanted with her.
Analysis
“To Rosamond” is a complicated poem. Given Chaucer’s famously cynical attitude towards courtly love, it’s hard not to read it as partially mocking the speaker’s outsized devotion. Yet, especially in the opening stanzas, the poem is also vivid and moving, with some very innovative language. Critics have therefore disagreed on how serious the poem really is, with many describing it as “mixed”: a genuine love poem inflected by a satirical self-awareness.
Much of the first stanza is both surprising and emotionally resonant. Chaucer’s comparison of the beloved’s beauty to the ocean that encircles the world in medieval world maps, or mappamundi, is highly unusual. Indeed, his might be the first use of the term “mappamundi” in written English. The simile is a little difficult to interpret, but the speaker seems to suggest that his beloved encompasses all earthly beauty just like the ocean encircles the whole world. Furthermore, mappamundi emphasized God’s presence in the physical world. By alluding to them, Chaucer builds on the religious connotations of shrines, to suggest that there is something holy about the beloved’s beauty.
Although the poem begins by praising Rosamond’s physical beauty, in the first stanza the speaker stresses that it is also her personality that he finds appealing. He watches her dance, focusing not on her body or her clothing, but rather on her playful personality. Her frivolity is a little at odds with the somber religious imagery that opens the poem. However, it also suggests intimacy and realism. Rather than a symbol of womanly perfection, the dancing Rosamond feels like someone Chaucer might have actually known, which is why many critics have suspected that this poem is about a particular person with whom the poet was familiar. Chaucer is drawing attention to the difference between the idealized woman the speaker describes, and the real Rosamond, who is not a shrine to beauty, but a human person.
The speaker describes himself as wounded by love, and states that seeing his beloved dance serves as a soothing ointment for his injury. Although the image is a little dramatic, it also describes an ordinary physical experience. In contrast to the flowery metaphors at the beginning of the poem, the ointment comparison is much closer to home. Like the dance image, the wound and ointment metaphor seems to acknowledge that love isn’t just some idealized, impersonal idea, but also an intimate, everyday, personal experience. The image is also ironic. For the speaker, the very woman who hurts him is the only cure for his ailment.
As the poem progresses, this same dynamic escalates. The second stanza is punctuated by contrasts. The speaker describes himself as weeping and full of woe, yet he also insists that his heart is not confounded. Though he shows signs of grief, the real emotional story is more complicated. Similarly, he confesses that Rosamond’s voice is “small,” yet hearing it makes his joyful thoughts expand to become all-encompassing. Love binds him and frees him simultaneously, with his suffering transforming into joy, and vice versa. However, this love doesn’t actually exist in relationship to Rosamond. Although the speaker praises her voice, he speaks to himself and not her when he confesses that simply to love her from afar is enough. Ironically, by finding joy in unrequited love, the speaker isolates himself from his beloved.
By the third stanza, Chaucer presents this self-interested romance as self-evidently ridiculous. The speaker compares himself, immersed in love, to a fish cooked in sauce. The metaphor might be vivid, but the image of a sloppily cooked fish is fundamentally at odds with the pleasure, delicacy, and beauty of romance. Furthermore, it doesn’t leave any room for the beloved. The speaker, represented by the dead fish, is merely surrounded by his own love for Rosamond. Fittingly, she is not described at all in this last stanza. As the speaker acknowledges, it doesn’t matter what Rosamond does, because he will enjoy the feeling of being in love no matter what.
"To Rosamond" thus reaches a cynical conclusion about love. Romance isn’t a way of being closer to another person, but rather a form of self-involvement. Ironically, in insisting on his devotion to Rosamond, the speaker becomes entirely disinterested in her feelings. However, the poem as a whole suggests a slightly more complex story. Although love ends up looking ridiculous, the opening of the poem suggests that it could be something more—a semi-religious feeling, a way of experiencing the whole world in a single relationship, a natural response to a delightful woman who loves to dance. Though this particular speaker doesn’t live up to the potential of love, perhaps it didn’t need to go this way.
