Rose, you throning one, to them of ancient times
you were a chalice with a simple rim.
But for us you are the full, the countless flower,
the inexhaustible object.
These few lines by the poet Rilke convey some of the mystery of the rose. No other flower is so enmeshed in our history and our imaginations. Roses have so many symbolic meanings they are truly inexhaustible. Their petals, seeds and roots were used in multiple ways, for medicines, love potions, trade and currency.
Fossil evidence suggests that the rose goes back 35 million years. They were being cultivated in Western Asia and North Eastern Africa around 5000 years ago. There are believed to be 150 species in Northern hemisphere. There were roses in the garden of the Assyrian Queen Semiramis. Cleopatra famously used rose petals in her seduction of Anthony.
In the Greek and Roman worlds the rose represented both sex and death. It’s the flower of the Goddess Aphrodite/Venus. The white rose was a by product of her birth, a testament to the power of the Goddess’ skin. As she stepped onto the shore the foam on the water turned to white rose bushes, a perfect flower for such a fragrant goddess. The red rose was born from her blood. As she rushed to warn her lover, Adonis, of the jealousy of her brother, she tore her skin on a thorn. White petals were stained red. Red and white roses remained the most symbolic.
A red rose continues to be the symbol of love. But even in the ancient world the rose had other meanings. The Roman festival the Rosalia was dedicated to the dead, a show of respect to the ancestors. Roses were planted on graves and gardens were sometimes created near graves. This was a practice shared by the pre-Christian Germanic tribes. The red rose continued to be connected to blood, with its use in funerals representing a bloodless, but equally potent sacrifice.
The perfume and petals of the rose were prized by the ancient world. Petals were used as confetti at festivals and celebrations. Rose water was used in food and medications. For the Romans, rose petals and rose water became essential elements of ‘conspicuous consumption.’ (Touw) Whole fountains of rose water might flow at banquets and floors be knee deep in rose petals. At a notorious banquet given by Nero, some of the guests allegedly suffocated. The Victorian painter Alma-Tadema painted a scene from the life of another Roman emperor, Heliogabalus:
“In a banqueting-room with a reversible ceiling he once buried his guests in violets and other flowers, so that some were actually smothered to death, being unable to crawl out to the top.”
Perhaps thinking of Nero, the painter changed the flowers to roses, with the guests drowning in a sea of pink petals.
After the fall of the Roman Empire the rose fell out of favour. Some early saints castigated it as a symbol of sensuality and worldliness. Yet by the medieval period roses were back in fashion and had regained their symbolic power.
With the growing worship of The Virgin Mary the rose came to symbolise virtue and to represent a perfect balance between heaven and earth. A lyric from 1420, cited by historian Nicola Harrison, makes this explicit:
There is no rose of such virtue
As is the rose that bare Jesu;
Alleluia.
For in this rose contained was
Heaven and earth in little space;
Res Miranda.
Mary was associated with both red and white roses. White symbolised her purity, red her compassion. The number of petals corresponded with the number of her virtues. From its origin in the birth of Aphrodite, the rose had come to symbolise divine love. Mary was a rose without thorns. Yet she took on many of the aspects of a nature goddess. She was seen as ‘the mother of all growing, living things’. The C13 German poet Konrad von Würzburg wrote:
“You are a living paradise
Of gloriously coloured flowers.”
Heaven was often portrayed as a walled garden, a hortus conclusus, an idea that originated in the Song of Solomon. “A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up”. 4.12 (A love song that probably predates the birth of Aphrodite.)
The Madonna of the Rose Bower, a panel painting by the German artist Stephan Lochner,c 1440-42, is one of many representations of Mary amid flowers, symbolically at the centre of everything.
In The Madonna of the May Flowers, 1448, she is shown handing a white rose to the christ child, framed by red roses to her left and white roses to her right.
This rebirth of the symbolic significance of the rose also had roots in more worldly things. Between 900 and 1600 Persia had a thriving rose industry. The Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) records a tax account where the city of Fars was required to pay Bagdad 30000 flasks of rose water. Trade in roses, both fragrances and rose water, underpinned the prominence of the rose over all other flowers. The industry spread to Arabia, where the distillation process was perfected. Mia Touw, writing in the journal Economic Botany, suggests this discovery was made by alchemists, wheredistillation was acrucial part of the transformation process. Here the rose regains its symbolic importance. No other flower is so rooted in both mundane and spiritual worlds.
“all material being placed in a glass vessel, with a certain quantity of dew, forms a blue powder, from which, when the heat is applied, there springs a stem, leaves and flowers, and a whole and perfect plant is formed from its own ashes.’” (she cites Gordon Pageant of the rose )
The distillation process created new, even more valuable products, such as the luxury attar of roses oil and a better quality rosewater. These were being exported to Europe by the second half of the C10. Returning crusaders brought rose water to Europe and it became fashionable to have finger bowls filled with it on tables.
Roses had so many medicinal uses that they were regarded as something of a panacea. Their use is detailed in texts by Dioscorides, a Greek physician who wrote a five volume Materia Medica, c50CE, Galen (c.129-200CE), Avicenna and Albertus Magnus, among others. Its qualities were believed to be cooling and drying, so could be usedto allay fever, inflammation and pain. They also stopped any flow, including haemorrhage or diarrhoea. In his De Vegetabilibus, c1250, Albertus Magnus writes ‘altogether it comforts the interior organs’ and he claimed it was a remedy for many other things including scorpion stings and reptile bites.
All parts of the plant were used, including seeds and roots. Avicenna wrote that
rose flowers cool and bind. He believed dried flowers were more effective than fresh. According to Hildegard von Bingen’s remedy for bloodshot eyes, roses had to be gathered at dawn, petals then laid on the eyes. She also thought them very good applied to ulcers, and a useful addition ‘to any medicine or salve.’ (Fischer 1929)
Rose leaves soaked in wine produced a wash for headaches and troubles of the eyes, ears, gums. This remedy could also be applied to ailments of the rectum and vulva. Inflammation and wounds were treated with rose wine compresses. Touw notes how one herbal gives four pages to the rose, where other plants are allocated one or two paragraphs.
The healing power of the rose was called upon during plagues and epidemics. Rose fragrances and incenses were used to purify the air, and carried or worn as a protection. Dried rose petals were sometimes crushed and made into beads, giving their wearer a permanent fragrance.
Elizabethan poet Robert Herrick’s famous verse, To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time seems an over simplification.
Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
The rose is far from ephemeral. Both its sacred and profane aspects survive in the modern world. Many churches, both Catholic and Anglican, have a hortus conclusus, a garden dedicated to Mary. The Pope hands out a golden rose in an annual ceremony, praying to God “to bless and sanctify this rose, most delightful in odour and appearance, which we this day carry in sign of spiritual joy…” Incense is burned and the golden rose is sprinkled with holy water.
We still value attar of roses, buy rose scented candles and fragrances. Rose petals are increasingly scattered at weddings, as a more environmentally friendly alternative to confetti. David Austen, who restored fragrance to the rose by interbreeding old and new varieties, now offers 900 varieties.
It is the ‘inexhaustible object’ of our hopes, dreams and desires.
you were a chalice with a simple rim.
But for us you are the full, the countless flower,
the inexhaustible object.
These few lines by the poet Rilke convey some of the mystery of the rose. No other flower is so enmeshed in our history and our imaginations. Roses have so many symbolic meanings they are truly inexhaustible. Their petals, seeds and roots were used in multiple ways, for medicines, love potions, trade and currency.
Fossil evidence suggests that the rose goes back 35 million years. They were being cultivated in Western Asia and North Eastern Africa around 5000 years ago. There are believed to be 150 species in Northern hemisphere. There were roses in the garden of the Assyrian Queen Semiramis. Cleopatra famously used rose petals in her seduction of Anthony.
In the Greek and Roman worlds the rose represented both sex and death. It’s the flower of the Goddess Aphrodite/Venus. The white rose was a by product of her birth, a testament to the power of the Goddess’ skin. As she stepped onto the shore the foam on the water turned to white rose bushes, a perfect flower for such a fragrant goddess. The red rose was born from her blood. As she rushed to warn her lover, Adonis, of the jealousy of her brother, she tore her skin on a thorn. White petals were stained red. Red and white roses remained the most symbolic.
A red rose continues to be the symbol of love. But even in the ancient world the rose had other meanings. The Roman festival the Rosalia was dedicated to the dead, a show of respect to the ancestors. Roses were planted on graves and gardens were sometimes created near graves. This was a practice shared by the pre-Christian Germanic tribes. The red rose continued to be connected to blood, with its use in funerals representing a bloodless, but equally potent sacrifice.
The perfume and petals of the rose were prized by the ancient world. Petals were used as confetti at festivals and celebrations. Rose water was used in food and medications. For the Romans, rose petals and rose water became essential elements of ‘conspicuous consumption.’ (Touw) Whole fountains of rose water might flow at banquets and floors be knee deep in rose petals. At a notorious banquet given by Nero, some of the guests allegedly suffocated. The Victorian painter Alma-Tadema painted a scene from the life of another Roman emperor, Heliogabalus:
“In a banqueting-room with a reversible ceiling he once buried his guests in violets and other flowers, so that some were actually smothered to death, being unable to crawl out to the top.”
Perhaps thinking of Nero, the painter changed the flowers to roses, with the guests drowning in a sea of pink petals.
After the fall of the Roman Empire the rose fell out of favour. Some early saints castigated it as a symbol of sensuality and worldliness. Yet by the medieval period roses were back in fashion and had regained their symbolic power.
With the growing worship of The Virgin Mary the rose came to symbolise virtue and to represent a perfect balance between heaven and earth. A lyric from 1420, cited by historian Nicola Harrison, makes this explicit:
There is no rose of such virtue
As is the rose that bare Jesu;
Alleluia.
For in this rose contained was
Heaven and earth in little space;
Res Miranda.
Mary was associated with both red and white roses. White symbolised her purity, red her compassion. The number of petals corresponded with the number of her virtues. From its origin in the birth of Aphrodite, the rose had come to symbolise divine love. Mary was a rose without thorns. Yet she took on many of the aspects of a nature goddess. She was seen as ‘the mother of all growing, living things’. The C13 German poet Konrad von Würzburg wrote:
“You are a living paradise
Of gloriously coloured flowers.”
Heaven was often portrayed as a walled garden, a hortus conclusus, an idea that originated in the Song of Solomon. “A garden enclosed is my sister, my spouse; a garden enclosed, a fountain sealed up”. 4.12 (A love song that probably predates the birth of Aphrodite.)
The Madonna of the Rose Bower, a panel painting by the German artist Stephan Lochner,c 1440-42, is one of many representations of Mary amid flowers, symbolically at the centre of everything.
In The Madonna of the May Flowers, 1448, she is shown handing a white rose to the christ child, framed by red roses to her left and white roses to her right.
This rebirth of the symbolic significance of the rose also had roots in more worldly things. Between 900 and 1600 Persia had a thriving rose industry. The Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) records a tax account where the city of Fars was required to pay Bagdad 30000 flasks of rose water. Trade in roses, both fragrances and rose water, underpinned the prominence of the rose over all other flowers. The industry spread to Arabia, where the distillation process was perfected. Mia Touw, writing in the journal Economic Botany, suggests this discovery was made by alchemists, wheredistillation was acrucial part of the transformation process. Here the rose regains its symbolic importance. No other flower is so rooted in both mundane and spiritual worlds.
“all material being placed in a glass vessel, with a certain quantity of dew, forms a blue powder, from which, when the heat is applied, there springs a stem, leaves and flowers, and a whole and perfect plant is formed from its own ashes.’” (she cites Gordon Pageant of the rose )
The distillation process created new, even more valuable products, such as the luxury attar of roses oil and a better quality rosewater. These were being exported to Europe by the second half of the C10. Returning crusaders brought rose water to Europe and it became fashionable to have finger bowls filled with it on tables.
Roses had so many medicinal uses that they were regarded as something of a panacea. Their use is detailed in texts by Dioscorides, a Greek physician who wrote a five volume Materia Medica, c50CE, Galen (c.129-200CE), Avicenna and Albertus Magnus, among others. Its qualities were believed to be cooling and drying, so could be usedto allay fever, inflammation and pain. They also stopped any flow, including haemorrhage or diarrhoea. In his De Vegetabilibus, c1250, Albertus Magnus writes ‘altogether it comforts the interior organs’ and he claimed it was a remedy for many other things including scorpion stings and reptile bites.
All parts of the plant were used, including seeds and roots. Avicenna wrote that
rose flowers cool and bind. He believed dried flowers were more effective than fresh. According to Hildegard von Bingen’s remedy for bloodshot eyes, roses had to be gathered at dawn, petals then laid on the eyes. She also thought them very good applied to ulcers, and a useful addition ‘to any medicine or salve.’ (Fischer 1929)
Rose leaves soaked in wine produced a wash for headaches and troubles of the eyes, ears, gums. This remedy could also be applied to ailments of the rectum and vulva. Inflammation and wounds were treated with rose wine compresses. Touw notes how one herbal gives four pages to the rose, where other plants are allocated one or two paragraphs.
The healing power of the rose was called upon during plagues and epidemics. Rose fragrances and incenses were used to purify the air, and carried or worn as a protection. Dried rose petals were sometimes crushed and made into beads, giving their wearer a permanent fragrance.
Elizabethan poet Robert Herrick’s famous verse, To the Virgins, To Make Much of Time seems an over simplification.
Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.
The rose is far from ephemeral. Both its sacred and profane aspects survive in the modern world. Many churches, both Catholic and Anglican, have a hortus conclusus, a garden dedicated to Mary. The Pope hands out a golden rose in an annual ceremony, praying to God “to bless and sanctify this rose, most delightful in odour and appearance, which we this day carry in sign of spiritual joy…” Incense is burned and the golden rose is sprinkled with holy water.
We still value attar of roses, buy rose scented candles and fragrances. Rose petals are increasingly scattered at weddings, as a more environmentally friendly alternative to confetti. David Austen, who restored fragrance to the rose by interbreeding old and new varieties, now offers 900 varieties.
It is the ‘inexhaustible object’ of our hopes, dreams and desires.