A Rose By Any Other Name...

"A Rose By Any Other Name Would Smell As Sweet"

Now there's an idiom we've all heard. Do any of you know where that phrase came from? Why Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, 1600, of course! Here's what Juliet actually said:

'Tis but thy name that is my enemy; 

Thou art thyself, though not a Montague.

What's Montague? it is nor hand, nor foot,

Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part

Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!

What's in a name? that which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet;

So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call'd,

Retain that dear perfection which he owes

Without that title. Romeo, doff thy name,

And for that name which is no part of thee

Take all myself.

So what exactly does that idiom mean?  .....What matters is what something is, not what it is called....  I've also heard "A rose is a rose is a rose...". Either way you say it, it means the same thing.

Pink Speckles

By the way, was this just a line in the play or was Shakespeare alluding to something else? Tour guides have been known to tell the story that when Shakespeare wrote this, he was actually making a joke at the expense of the Rose Theatre since the Rose was a local rival to Shakespeare's Globe Theatre and was reputed to have had less than effective sanitary arrangements, therefore referring to the smell. Is it true? I don't know, but I'm sure it made for a little more interesting story.

Caliente

Roses have always been one of my very favorite flowers. When I lived in Mexico, I had more than 30  rose bushes, mostly pink, and always in bloom it seemed. There was always a picture to be had of at least one rose. When I took an interest photography, most of my first photos were all of roses. 

In an earlier blog, I mentioned that I also like using a plug-in on my photography called the Redfield Fractalius Filter. I've had so many different effects with that filter that I came to like the digital art and manipulation of the picture even more just a plain photograph. So, I do both, but you'll probably see more with that particular filter than not. Caliente is an example of a photograph using the Fractalius Filter. So is Soft Beauty below.

Soft Beauty

For centuries, roses have inspired love and brought beauty to anyone who's received them. The rose's rich heritage dates back thousand of years! Compliments of The Society of American Florists, let's look at come interesting rose facts.

• It is said that the floors of Cleopatra's palace were carpeted with delicate rose petals, and that the wise and knowing Confucius had a 600 book library specifically on how to care for roses.

• In the readings of Shakespeare, he refers to roses more than 50 times throughout his writings.

• The world's oldest living rose is thought to be 1,000 years old! Today it continues to flourish on the wall of the Hildesheim Cathedral in Germany.

• Ancient Romans believed that white roses grew where the tears of Venus fell as she mourned the loss of her beloved Adonis. Myth also has it that Venus' son Cupid accidentally shot arrows into the rose garden when a bee stung him, and it was the "sting" of the arrows that caused the roses to grow thorns. When Venus walked through the garden and pricked her foot on  a thorn, it was the droplets of her blood which turned the roses red.

• It's the official state flower of New York.

• According to Greek Mythology, it was Aphrodite who gave the rose its name.

• While the rose itself bears no fruit, the rose hips (the part left on the plant after the rose is done blooming) contain more Vitamin C than almost any other fruit or vegetable.

• The romantic French were the first to deliver roses. It was in the seventeenth century that French explorer Samuel de Champlain brought the first cultivated roses to North America.

• According to recent archaeological discoveries,  they found fossilized remains of wild roses supposedly over 40 million years old.

• Napoleon's wife, Josephine, so adored roses that she grew more than 250 varieties.

Seeing Double

Delicate Beauty

The genus Rosa has some 150 species spread throughout the Northern Hemisphere, from Alaska to Mexico and including northern Africa. Yes, roses have had a long, rich history. Is it any wonder that they are such a popular flower? They've been the symbols of love, beauty, war, and politics. And, they are still one of my favorite flowers!

Hybrid Blue

Click the Rose below to view some unusual roses. While I didn't take these photos in this group, I thought it would be interesting to see some that are not so traditional.....Enjoy!