THE ROSE

Evening Star, Issue 14535, 10 December 1910, Page 5

THE ROSE

Tlio Dunetlin Horticultural Society will bo holding their summer rose show on Wednesday. A good show is i'.nttciputed, although tho season has been very early a lob of good and Into varieties will be forthcoming. Tho rose has always been described a.s the Queen of Flower*, and is mentioned in much of the Persian literature and sacred history. It was greatly beloved by Arab writers, who rrade it tho subject of graceful legends, and it played an important part in tho works of tho poets of India, who never tired of singing its praises as the symbol of beauty. In the fiction more thxn in the poetry of the East it occupied a high position, arid dear friends arid lovely women were compared with it. The poets of Greece and Rome, constantly refer to it in their writings. In the poems of chivalrv and allegory the rose formed the centre theme of many of the finest nieces of literature of the day, notably in tho thirteenth century allegory, the 'Roman do la Rose.' In Germany, the best known legend counected with the rose was the ' licgend of tho Rose Garden of Worms.' At tho close of the fourteenth century medieval religious writers placed the flower in the abode of the blest. In time it i>ocame the symbol of tho Virgin and Christ, and also of martyrdom; and later St.. Bernard mado it tho image, of Christ in Hid Passion. In Alsace customs connecting the flower with May Day observances have a special place in the national poetry. In the ballads of Denmark it exercises a magic influence, wluch is not attributed to it in German and Latin literature. Turkish versifiers disguiso their loves under various versions of tho allegory of tho rose and the nightingale. Tho rose is also an emblem of death and misfortune, and a popular superstition in many countries connects roses flowering out of season with disaster to tho owner. The red rose especially is regarded as a sign of death, particularlv if it flowers in autumn or winter. The literature of Northern Europe represents roses as spread on the dead and planted on their graves,' and it is a ]>opular superstition that the flowers which bloom are reincarnations of tho sords of the departed.