An ode to the rose’s timeless charm
AGreek myth ells how a teardrop of Aphrodite created the first ever rose on earth, as she mourned her mortal lover Adonis’s death. Another version enumerates how she had injured herself by a thorn of a white rose, and how few drops of blood falling on milky white petals turned the flower into blood red.
Roses are the most enduring symbol of romance and love, gratitude and friendship. Perhaps no other flower in human history has been bestowed with so much affection, recall and symbolism. With another Valentine’s Day amid the pandemic, the story of the rose evokes a telling.
In Greco-Roman mythology, Chloris breathes life into a dead nymph’s body, transforming her into a flower. Aphrodite blessed the flower with magical beauty, naming her the rose.
Today, more than 150 species of roses bloom all over northern hemisphere. China has been attributed as the earliest cultivator of the flower enmassé 5,000 years ago. In Middle Eastern countries Syria, Iran, Iraq, the rose was cultivated in plenty during the Roman era. Even today, many swear by the benefits of Gulkand, or rose petal conserve, said to have been discovered by the early Syrians.
Middle Eastern imagination of the rose primarily stood for matters of the heart. A sight of the rose was said to have an emotive effect on ancient Arabs. Perhaps this was the genesis of the fabled nightingale story, which describes how the bird’s overwhelming love for the rose compelled it to hug the plant. As the sharp thorn pierced its little singing heart, blood drops fell on the white rose, transforming it into red, forever. This fabled riendship would go on to influence Persian literature and art later.
Symbolism in posterity
The symbolism found posterity through Persian lyric poetry by Hafez. The rose would later form an integral element of Sufi and Islamic cultural representations.
Christianity, meanwhile, had associated the rose with Virgin Mary’s virtues.
Hardly did one speculate that it would morph into partisan symbols of crusade in 15th century England, leading to the term “War of Roses”. But literature never forgot the rose. The charm was restored by William Shakespeare in his legendary Rome and Juliet where red rose acts as the symbol of pure, intense love until death and after.
Around the same time, the rose had set the artistic imagination of the impressionist painters ablaze.
Édouard Manet’s (1832-1883) unforgettable Moss Roses In A Vase was drawn an year before his death, while Claude Monet, unforgettable for his garden series of paintings had more than one rose themed art work namely, Garden At Saint Adresse or The Artist’s House From Rose Garden. Van Gogh’s Pink Roses (1890), painted in his signature style, bursting with desire and spontaneous rawness, is another timeless example.
In the Indian subcontinent and Central Asia, decorative art of lattice or jali and pietra dura or parchin kari were at its highest. They adorned various monuments, mosques, palaces. Who can ever forget pietra dura roses and vine creepers on the walls of the Taj Mahal.
At which point in history the rose got integrated to the narrative of Valentine, a Christian saint executed in Rome in 269AD, is not easy to pinpoint. The original story of a martyr may have been slightly lost in time but today celebrations of Valentine’s Day would be incomplete without a rose, the lasting symbol of romance and love.
The world needs more love for sure and what best can represent that feel, other than a magical rose!