Rose Culture

Roses are ancient symbols of love and beauty. The rose was sacred to a number of goddesses (including Isis and Aphrodite), and is often used as a symbol of the Virgin Mary. Roses are so important that the word means pink or red in a variety of languages (such as Romance languages, Greek, and Polish).

The rose is the national flower of England and the United States, as well as being the symbol of England Rugby, and of the Rugby Football Union. It is also the provincial flower of Yorkshire and Lancashire in England (the white rose and red rose respectively) and of Alberta (the wild rose), and the state flower of four US states: Iowa and North Dakota (R. arkansana), Georgia (R. laevigata), and New York (Rosa generally). Portland, Oregon counts "City of Roses" among its nicknames, and holds an annual Rose Festival.

Roses are ocassionally the basis of design for rose windows, such windows comprising five or ten segments (the five petals and five sepals of a rose) or multiples thereof; however most Gothic rose windows are much more elaborate and were probably based originally on the wheel and other symbolism.

A red rose (often held in a hand) is also a symbol of socialism or social democracy; it is also used as a symbol by the British and Irish Labour Parties, as well as by the French, Spanish (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), Portuguese, Norwegian, Danish, Swedish, Finnish, Brazilian, Dutch (Partij van de Arbeid) and European socialist parties. This originates from the red rose used as a badge by the marchers in the May 1968 street protests in Paris.

Victorian symbolism

According to the Victorian "Language of flowers", different coloured roses each have their own symbolic meaning:

• Red: love
• Pink: grace, lesser feelings of love
• Dark Pink: gratitude
• Light Pink: admiration, sympathy
• White: innocence, purity, secrecy, friendship, reverence and humility.
• Yellow: Yellow roses generally mean dying love or platonic love. In German-speaking countries, however, they can mean jealousy and infidelity.
• Yellow with red tips: Friendship, falling in love
• Orange: passion
• Burgundy: beauty
• Blue: mystery
• Green: calm
• Black: slavish devotion (as a true black rose is impossible to produce)
• Purple: protection (paternal/maternal love)

The rose came to symbolize the Republic of Georgia's non-violent bid for freedom during its Rose Revolution. and also, the symbol of a rose can also refer to the red rose of Lancaster, and the white rose of York, from the Wars of the Roses period.

Mythology and superstition

• In some pagan mythologies, no undead or ghostly creatures (particularly vampires) may cross the path of a wild rose. It was thought that to place a wild rose on a coffin of a recently deceased person would prevent them from rising again.
• Since the earliest times, the rose has been an emblem of silence:
  • In Greek Mythology, Eros presents a rose to the god of silence.
  • In a Celtic folk legend, a wandering, screaming spirit was silenced by presenting the spirit with a wild rose every new moon.
• Roses were used in very early times as a very potent ingredient in love philters.
• According to Indian mythology, one of the wives of Vishnu was found inside a rose.
• In Rome it was often customary to bless roses on "Rose Sunday".
• Amongst Muslims, it is still believed that the first rose was created from a tear of the prophet Mohammed, and it is further believed that on a certain day in the year the rose has a heart of gold.
• In Scotland, if a white rose bloomed in autumn it was a token of an early marriage.
• The red rose, it is believed by many religions, cannot grow over a grave.
• Rose leaves thrown into a burning flame are said to give good luck.
• If a young girl had more than one lover, it is believed in one mythology, she should take rose leaves and write the names of her lovers upon them before casting them into the wind. The last leaf to reach the ground would bear the name of the lover whom she should marry.
• It is believed that if a rose bush were pruned on St. John's Eve, it would be guaranteed to bloom in the autumn.

In art

Roses are often portrayed by artists. The French artist Pierre-Joseph Redouté produced some of the most detailed paintings of roses.

Quotes

• In the driest whitest stretch of pain's infinite desert, I lost my sanity and found this rose. – Rumi
• What's in a name? That which we call a rose/By any other name would smell as sweet. – William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet act II, sc. ii
• O, my love's like a red, red rose – Robert Burns, A Red, Red Rose
• Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses. – James Oppenheim, "Bread and Roses"
• Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose – Gertrude Stein, Sacred Emily (1913), a poem included in Geography and Plays.
• Arise, arise, arouse, a rose!- Eh, a rosy nose? – Jeremy Hillary Boob, Ph.D. (more commonly referred to as the 'Nowhere Man'), Yellow Submarine (film)