Meshilu, the Turkish poet, speaks of “a pavilion of roses as the seat of pleasure raised in the garden;” of “roses like the bright cheeks of beautiful maidens;” of the time when “the plants were sick, and the rose-bud hung its thoughtful head on its bosom;” and of the “dew, as it falls, being changed into rose-water.” They also sculpture a rose on the tombstone of a female who dies unmarried.
The early Roman Catholics have made the Rose the subject of various miraculous events, one of which is attributed to the canonized Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary. As the French author, Montalembert, relates it in his history of that Queen, Elizabeth loved to carry to the poor herself, by stealth, not only money, but even food, and other things which she had provided for them. She went thus loaded, and on foot, by the steep and hidden paths which led from the chateau to the town, and to the cottages in the neighboring valleys. One day, when, accompanied by her favorite maid, she was descending by a rough and scarcely visible path, carrying under her cloak some bread, meat, eggs, and other food, for distribution among the poor, she was suddenly met by her husband, who was returning from the chase. Astonished to see her thus bending under the weight of her burden, he said to her, “Let me see what you are carrying.” At the same time he threw open the cloak, which she held, with terror, to her breast, but found, as the legend says, nothing there but some white and red roses, the most beautiful he had ever seen.
D’Orbessan, in his work on the Rose, states, that in the church of Sainte-Luzanne, at Rome, is a mosaic of the time of Charlemagne, in which that prince is represented in a square mantle, and on his knees, while St. Peter is placing in his hands a standard covered with roses.
Michaud, in his Biographie Universelle, speaks of Clemence Isaure, a French lady, who lived in the latter part of the fifteenth century. She bequeathed to the academy of Toulouse a large income, exclusively for the celebration of floral games, and for the distribution of five prizes for as many pieces of poetry. The prizes consisted of an amaranth and rose of gold, and of a violet, marigold, and lily, of silver. The will also required that every three years, on the day of the commencement of the floral games, among other ceremonies to be observed, the members of the academy should visit and spread flowers upon her tomb. Ronsard, the French poet, having gained the first prize in the floral games, received, in place of the accustomed rose, a silver image of Minerva. Mary, Queen of Scots, was so much delighted with Ronsard’s beautiful poetry on the Rose, that she sent him a magnificent rose of silver, valued at £500, with this inscription:—“A. Ronsard. l’Apollon de la source des Muses.”
[CHAPTER XI.]
LUXURIOUS USE OF THE ROSE.
The ancients possessed, at a very early period, the luxury of roses, and the Romans brought it to perfection by covering with beds of these flowers the couches whereon their guests were placed, and even the tables which were used for banquets;[1] while some emperors went so far as to scatter them in the halls of their palaces. At Rome, they were, at one time, brought from Egypt in that part of the year when Italy could not produce them; but afterwards, in order to render these luxuries more easily attainable during the winter by the leaders of the ton in that capital city of the world’s empire, their gardeners found the means of producing, in green-houses warmed by means of pipes filled with hot water, an artificial temperature, which kept roses and lilies in bloom until the last of the year. Seneca declaimed, with a show of ridicule, against these improvements;[2] but, without being discouraged by the reasoning of the philosopher, the Romans carried their green-houses to such perfection that, at length, during the reign of Domitian, when the Egyptians thought to pay him a splendid compliment in honor of his birthday, by sending him roses in the midst of winter, their present excited nothing but ridicule and disdain, so abundant had winter roses become at Rome by the efforts of art. Few of the Latin poets have been more celebrated for their epigrammatic wit than Martial; and his epigram “To Cæsar, on the Winter Roses,” serves to show that the culture of roses at Rome was carried to such perfection as to make the attempts of foreign competitors subjects only for ridicule.
“The ambitious inhabitants of the land watered by the Nile have sent thee, O Cæsar, the roses of winter, as a present valuable for its novelty. But the boatman of Memphis will laugh at the gardens of Pharaoh as soon as he has taken one step in thy capital city—for the spring, in its charms, and the flowers in their fragrance and beauty, equal the glory of the fields of Pæstum. Wherever he wanders or casts his eyes, every street is brilliant with garlands of roses. And thou, O Nile, must now yield to the fogs of Rome. Send us thy harvests, and we will send thee roses.”