In England the bride wears a coronet of intermingled orange blossom and jessamine. Orange flowers indicate chastity, and the jessamine, elegance and grace.
THE ROSE.
For here the rose expands
Her paradise of leaves.
Southey.
The ROSE, (Rosa) the Queen of Flowers, was given by Cupid to Harpocrates, the God of Silence, as a bribe, to prevent him from betraying the amours of Venus. A rose suspended from the ceiling intimates that all is strictly confidential that passes under it. Hence the phrase--under the Rose[075].
The rose was raised by Flora from the remains of a favorite nymph. Venus and the Graces assisted in the transformation of the nymph into a flower. Bacchus supplied streams of nectar to its root, and Vertumnus showered his choicest perfumes on its head.
The loves of the Nightingale and the Rose have been celebrated by the Muses of many lands. An Eastern poet says "You may place a hundred handfuls of fragrant herbs and flowers before the Nightingale; yet he wishes not, in his constant heart, for more than the sweet breath of his beloved Rose."
The Turks say that the rose owes its origin to a drop of perspiration that fell from the person of their prophet Mahommed.
The classical legend runs that the rose was at first of a pure white, but a rose-thorn piercing the foot of Venus when she was hastening to protect Adonis from the rage of Mars, her blood dyed the flower. Spenser alludes to this legend:
White as the native rose, before the change
Which Venus' blood did on her leaves impress.