Hic jacet in tumba Rosa mundi, non Rosa munda;
Non redolet, sed olet, quæ redolere solet.
Here Rose the graced, not Rose the chaste, reposes;
The smell that rises is no smell of roses.
*** The subject has been a great favorite with poets. We have in English the following tragedies:—The Complaint of Rosamond, by S. Daniel (before 1619); Henry II.... with the Death of Rosamond, either Bancroft or Mountford (1693); Rosamond, by Addison (1706); Henry and Rosamond, by Hawkins (1749); Fair Rosamond, by Tennyson (1879). In Italian, Rosmonda, by Rucellai (1525). In Spanish, Rosmunda, by Gil y Zarate (1840). We have also Rosamond, an opera, by Dr. Arne (1733); and Rosamonde, a poem in French, by C. Briffaut (1813). Sir Walter Scott has introduced the beautiful soiled dove in two of his novels—The Talisman and Woodstock.
*** Dryden says her name was Jane:
Jane Clifford was her name, as books aver:
“Fair Rosamond” was but her nom de guerre.
We rede that in Englande was a king that had a concubyne whose name was Rose, and for hir greate bewtye he cleped hir Rose à mounde (Rosa mundi), that is to say, Rose of the world, for him thought that she passed al wymen in bewtye.—R. Pynson (1493), subsequently printed by Wynken de Worde in 1496.
The Rosemonde of Alfieri is quite another person. (See [Rosemond].)
Rosa´na, daughter of the Armenian queen who helped St. George to quench the seven lamps of the knight of the Black Castle.—R. Johnson, The Seven Champions of Christendom, ii. 8, 9 (1617).
Roscius (Quintus), the greatest of Roman actors (died B.C. 62).
What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?
Shakespeare, 3 Henry VI. act v. sc. 6 (1592).