The title of our blog, an obvious take on the nomenclature of the great Umberto Eco novel, is an echo of the idea dedicated to this flower. Oh, yes, June is the 'month' of the rose! Now, as noted in one of our earlier blogs, not only are there 'days', but also 'months' celebrating some concept or the other. Hence the association of the month with the flower.
I suppose, the moment a rose is mentioned, for sure we remember the unique shape, the special texture, the distinctive fragrance of this flower. Its range of colours, very aggressively marketed in the Valentine week, is wondrous as well.
Yet, unlike any other flower, the rare most quality of a rose is that this beauty blooms amidst thorns. Hence the rose symbolises all that is attractive yet unattainable. Every language on the earth would sure have a proverb of the 'no pains, no gains' variety associated with this special flower.
The rose, anyways, is deeply symbolic. For Christianity, it symbolises the perfect Trinity as the shape of a rose about to bloom has this triune structure. For the lovelorn, a rose is always the Robert Burns declaration, 'my love is like a red, red rose'.
It is the national symbol of England since the fifteenth century. Well, England had a centuries old War of Roses! America, however, usurped the flower as its national flower in 1986 with the then President, Ronald Reagan, declaring grandly that they hold the rose dear as a symbol of life, love, devotion, eternity and beauty. Talk of the American expansionist tendencies!
So many texts there are dedicated to this beauty queen. Our blog itself mentions a few. Cute is our very own Sarojini Naidu's poem celebrating the birth of the lotus. In that sonnet, she, too, has a line dedicated to the proud bloom of the rose!
A rose is a rose is a rose, in brief. So let us end our tribute to it with Juliet's world famous assertion, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other word would smell as sweet"!
Pratima@Rose vibes are indeed wonderful!
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