Today we turn our thoughts to love… and to flowers. Flowers and love seem to be interconnected throughout history.
Shakespeare refers to the Rose over 70 times; it is the most mentioned flower throughout his work. The varieties of Rose he mentions include the Musk Rose (Rosa moschata), the Damask Rose (Rosa damascena), the Eglantine or Sweet Briar (Rosa rubiginosa), the Provence or Cabbage Rose (Rosa centifolia) and the Wild Dog Rose (Rosa canina).
His play, Romeo and Juliet, contains one of the most popular quotes on roses. In the play, Juliet says, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” She’s reminding Romeo that even though they come from rival houses, it shouldn’t matter because their love is real.
“Of all flowers
Methinks a rose is best.”
– Two Noble Kinsmen, Act II, Scene II
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet.”
– Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene II
“O rose of May
Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia.”
– Hamlet, Act IV, Scene V
“With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight.”
– A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act II, Scene I
“Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,
Why I thy amiable cheeks do coy
And stick musk roses in thy sleek smooth head
And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.”
– A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act IV, Scene I
“The rose looks fair, but fairer we it deem
For that sweet odour which doth in it live.”
The Rose was considered to be the queen of all flowers and was used to represent beauty and love. However Shakespeare also used the Rose to convey the contrary nature of life, to say that like the Rose with its thorns, in life there is pleasure mixed with pain.
“Is love a tender thing? It is too rough,
Too rude, too boisterous, and it pricks like Thorn.”
– Romeo and Juliet, Act I, Scene IV
“Roses have thorns and silver fountain mud
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.”
“For women are as Roses, whose fair flower
Being once display’d doth fall that very hour.”
– Twelfth Night, Act II, Scene IV