Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1889-06-27
OriginallyIWhite and ThOrnless- Dyed
with the Nightingale's Blood.
A Mishap to Cupid Once Caused 1t to
Be Endowed with ThOrns.

|
Goals was turned instantly into bed of
roses, "whereon the child sweetly slum-
Der ed"
The Greeks give the rose a lover in the
person of Zephyr, the son of the dawn,
who discovered the rose in bud and cares
sed it when it Enclosed to his wooing. The
Persians make lovemates of the nightin-
gale and rose-ths bulbul and the gull,
Originally the rose was white, but &C
cording to the Persian poet Jami, the
nightingale in the ardor of his love "press-
ed his breast against the encircling thorns
and covered her delicate petals with his
flowing blood" Another account is
that Venus, fearing for herl over Adonis
the vengeance of Mars hid him in thick
ct of roses.
While the enamored queen of JOY
| Flies to protect her lovely boy,
On whom the jealous god rushes,
/ She treads upon thorned rose,
| And while the wound with crimson flows
The snowy how'ret feels her blood with
is Moore's translation of Latin epigram
embodying the fable. Bion, in his ia
nous idyi on the death of Adonis, says of
Venus weeping over her wounded and
dying lover:
Both tears and drops Of blood were turned to
| flowers,
From these in crimson beauty sprang the rose,
| Cerulean bright anenous from those.
Thorns are accounted for in an equally
fanciful way. Cupid, STOPPING to kiss a
new-blown, dewy rose, was stung by bee
asleep in its heart. To please the
petutent boy. Venus strung bis bow with
captive bees and planted along the stem
of the rose the stipgs torn from the
bees.
Hippoorates, the god of silence, carries
as his symbol "a rose given to him by
Cupid. From the idea of secrecy or re-
serve that associates itself with roses
came to the old custom recorded by the
Greeks. When the people of the North,
they say, wished to preserve the most
profund secrecy in regard to what was
said between themselves at their feasts, a
freshly gathered rose was hung from the
ceiling above the upper end of the table.
It was considered not only dishonorablt,
but a crime, to reveal that which had been
said 'tsub rosa"
i Roses were dedicated to Venus as the
symbol of beauty, to Cupid as the symbol
of love, to Aurora, the rosy fingered, to
signify her office of opening the portal
of the dey, to youth and springtime. In
the exuberance of their love and loyalty
she meant to the Greeks all thing bright
and fresh and fragrant.
Vast rose gardens were planted on the
hills uear Athens, which supplied flower
markets of the day. And in G seco Roman
colonies of Paestum and Sybaris the Gull
tdre must have been carried to a very
high degree of perfection. Ovid tells US
that they were to bloom twice q year by
means of hot water, which-from testi-
mony gathered from the literature of the
day-nust have been carried in pipes,
much as is done in our hot houses today,
Pliny writes, about the date of tn ,
Christian era: sit is a flower known to
all nations equally With wine, myrtle and
OIL"
When the Egyptian Queen Cleopatra
went to Cilicia to meet Marc Antony she
celebrated their meeting by daily feasts.
During the first three days the richest
tapestry and hangings, vessels of gold
and silver, adornments of precious stones,
all that the wealth and luxury and refine
:, ment of the world could supply were
lavished upon the entertainments. On
the fourth day as the crown and eulmina-
tion of it all, she gave to him feast of
roses. The floors of the rooms and halls
were covered to the depth of eighteen
inches with freshly blown roses, held in
place by strong but delicate nat
stretched above them. Nero, not many
years later, gave feast where 100000
, was spent IN roses alone.
: The Romans obtained their roses at
first from Egypt. They were scattered
through their temples and on their floors
and coaches, and the petals foated upon
the Falernian, which they drank. On the
occasion of certain water parties given at
Bale, the whole lake of Lucina was cover
ed with roses, which parted before the
moving boats and closed after them as
, they passed.
Lucias Verus reached a luxury in the
use of the rose never surpassed before or
after his time. He slept upon a couch
covered with cushions made of fine, thin
pet, and filed with freshly gathered rose
leaves. The extreme fastidiousness of
the young Smindyrides, the Sybarite,
whose sleep was disturbed by crumpled
rose leaf has passed into familiar pro
verb.
In the third century, when Heliog-
bslus the beautiful, long haired priest of
the sun, was called, from serving the al
: ters of Bail in Phoen;c, to the wearing of
, the imperial purple, his extravagances
. left behind those of his predecessors and
. drained the resources OF the empire. His
. gorgeous dresses, golden ornaments and
precious wearing. His floors were scat
5 tered with gold dust and covered with
! roses. His Porticoes and touches and
beds were strewn with them. Through
+, the four years of his mad career the path
way that lead to his violent death was lit
= orally strewn with roses.
The oldest rose bush in the world is al
Hildersheim. It was planted more than
1000 years ago by Charlemagne in oom-
memoration of visit made him by the
ambassador of the Caliph Harom-al-Ras
child of arabian Nights" fame.
The rose plant WAS, when described g
few years ago, still living and blooming
e profusely and was Is feet high, covering
9 80 feet of wall, though the stem was only
two inches in diameter.
: In the German Book of Heroes" there
y is story of rose garden at Worms sur
!, | rounded by single silken thread. The
Princess Chrymhilde promised to each
? knight who should successfully defend il
= and Stay in attacking a:giantssa chaplet OF
roses and kiss. Hildebrandt, one of ths
knights, took the roses, but declined the
/, kiss. Another, monk, not only look ths
}, kiss, but sued for one apiece for all the
II members of his fraternity. To this tn.
princess consented, but only after the val
: iant monk had fulfilled his tale" o.
q giants; one for each kiss.
i Altar of roses is sometimes worth eigh
times its worth in gold. Until the six
e teenth century there is no authentic men
10 sion of altar. The story of its origin il
II told in the history of the MogHl Empire
The Snltana Nourmahai, the light of tn