Borrowing from allegorical tradition of dream narratives figure of cheminement, Romance of Rose stages an who from very beginning of dream walks. This walk is no aimless wandering. The in dream (a persona to which I shall refer for sake of convenience as Lover) is indeed beckoned, without his knowledge, toward pool of Narcissus that Romance of Rose excises from narrative to which it apparently belongs, Ovid's Metamorphoses, in order to graft it at very core of its own oneiric space. While Ovidian pool was site of deadly self-reflection, such is not its function in Romance of Rose. As he looks into pool, Lover discovers two crystals where garden is reflected, as in mirror. The crystalline mirror of Romance of Rose substitutes for reflecting surface that silvery water provided in Ovid's text. It becomes speculum mundi where Lover sees entire garden reflected. But since Lover has already searched and l'afere et tot l'estre, the entire condition and nature of garden, when he comes upon fountain: (1) Mes j'alai tant destre et senestre que j'oi tot l'afere et tot l'estre dou vergier cerchie et veu. [1415-17--emphasis mine] (I wandered to right and to left until I had seen whole garden and explored all its features. [p. 23]) Why should he see this estre one more time reflected in pool? As we shall see, mirror of pool does not provide mere reflection of garden. The pool takes on new function, which has not so far been sufficiently recognized: it becomes site where text reflects its own allegorical vision. This self-reflection is critical in several respects for it implicitly calls into question distinction between perception and allegory as well as status of lyric as source of allegorical vision that text claims to be. Critics have proposed varied interpretations of crystals that Romance of Rose, in rather provocative move, grafts onto Ovidian pool. For C.S. Lewis, they figure poetic image of lady's eyes; for others, they figure lover's eyes, or reflection of his own eyes in those of lady. (2) Pursuing this line of investigation, more recent interpretations have read crystals as an allegory for speculum that eye is supposed to be. According to medieval optics, eye provides reflective surface upon which images of world are received, reflected and imprinted. As to part of eye which reflects shape, medieval optics will mostly localize it in crystalline humor; that is, in glass-like lens suspended in watery substance which, according to Aristotle, makes up eye. As Knoespel points out, existence of crystalline lens (that Galen called crystalline humor) was known to Latin West since beginning of 12th century, thanks to Hunain ibn Ishaq's Liber de oculis. (3) According to Liber de oculis: (4) The eye is composed of many different parts. Vision, however, arises from only one of these parts which is called crystalline humor. The rest of humors and small tissues exist only to aid crystalline humor. [...] The crystalline humor is white and luminous. It is not completely round, however, because it is somewhat flat. It is situated in middle of eye. It is white and shiny so that it may quietly receive variety of colors. With its white and shiny quality, it rapidly reflects colors just as we find in clear glass. A receptacle of images, fountain is, according to Knoespel, a representation of human eye, (5) and more specifically, of crystalline humor which functions as receptacle for color and form as well as means by which they are conveyed to optical nerve and brain: Hunain's description of eye's structure provides an important detail for our understanding of Guillaume's fountain, for it indicates that crystals beneath water, with their ability to receive color from sun's rays, are most likely physical allegory of crystalline humor situated within watery substance of eye. …