A Victorian Flower Dictionary - Mandy Kirkby [28]
The floral language of the rose needed to be carefully studied before any move could be made. The stronger the affection, the deeper the colour to match: a white rose for a young maiden (a pink flush at its heart is her girlish blush) through to crimson for a message of passionate love. Yellow was rarely considered a good colour in the language of flowers, and was used therefore to denote infidelity. In the rose’s budding and blooming is a parallel with the transitory state of young womanhood and the ephemerality of love itself; so, the tender rosebud for a girl but the full-blown bloom for a woman whose beauty is at its zenith. The path of love from its first stirrings to its mature, sensual pleasures and the end of the affair – all permutations could be covered.
WOMEN AND ROSES
I dream of a red-rose tree.
And which of its roses three
Is the dearest rose to me?
Round and round, like a dance of snow
In a dazzling drift, as its guardians, go
Floating the women faded for ages,
Sculptured in stone, on the poet’s pages.
Then follow women fresh and gay,
Living and loving and loved to-day.
Last, in the rear, flee the multitude of maidens,
Beauties yet unborn. And all, to one cadence,
They circle their rose in my rose tree.
ROBERT BROWNING
From the old moss rose to the newest and best, the rose was never out of place anywhere in Victorian society, whether in the shopkeeper’s back parlour or the smartest country house. It featured in summer bouquets and lavish displays, ballroom posies and Valentine messages. Pale pink moss roses (with their abundance of petals, they were styled ‘the ambassador of love’ and declared one’s passion) and a fringe of forget-me-nots could not fail to touch the heart. But if love needed a gentle nudge, then a stroll in a rose garden in June might inflame the passions. The advice of the July 1835 Literary Treasury of Science and Art was to wait until Midsummer’s Eve and walk backwards into the rose garden and pick a rose; store it in a clean sheet of paper until Christmas Day, which would keep it as fresh as in June; then place it in the bosom; whoever removed it was certain to propose.
In Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the maidenly Tess decorates herself with roses, unaware that she has caused a stir. ‘She became aware of the spectacle she presented to their surprised vision: roses at her breast; roses in her hat; roses and strawberries in her basket to the brim.’ She quietly removes them and, in doing so, a stray thorn pricks her chin, a classic ill omen.
The cowslip is a country wench,
The violet is a nun;
But I will woo the dainty rose,
The queen of every one.
THOMAS HOOD
ROSEMARY
Remembrance
There’s Rosemary, that’s for remembrance;
Pray, love, remember.
from HAMLET, ACT IV, SCENE V
An aromatic plant of gentle appeal, rosemary is a shrub of dark green, needle-like leaves, silver-coloured underneath each leaf, which flowers in every shade from palest milky blue and mauve to deepest ultramarine. It is, however, a plant of some potency: when it grows thickly its scent is strong and casts itself far and wide, and when eaten it is said to have the power to strengthen the memory.
This association dates from ancient times, when it was recommended as a remedy against forgetfulness, and students in Ancient Greece were said to wear a garland of it to energize the mind. The plant’s strong, sharp smell does stimulate the senses and clear the head, and perhaps this is what lies behind the belief that it could revitalize the memory.
A native of the Mediterranean region, rosemary has grown in Britain since Anglo-Saxon times. Over the centuries it was highly valued as a strewing herb and for its antiseptic properties, often included