58 STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



gorical virtues, dangers, temptations and alarms, under the guise of 

 minutely dressed ladies and gentlemen ; he finally obtains the long- 

 sought flower, but, alas ! the treasure is no sooner his than its charm 

 vanishes, he cares no longer for its beauty and the fragrance it exhales. 

 He neglects it in disgust, and finally abandons it. And then comes the 

 inevitable moral ! That portion by De Lorris is full of sweet imagery 

 and poetical thought, but when the witty and versatile Jean de Meun 

 takes up the tale, " the allegory becomes a satire, and the aroma of 

 poetry dies out of it with the fragrance of the forgotten rose." All this 

 requires 22,000 verses for the telling. It makes one "envy the secular 

 leisure of Methuselah," as Lowell says in another connection. 



This " Romaunt of the Rose" had peculiar charms for Chaucer, 

 the poet of spring, who finds his way naturally to the roses wherever 

 he may be. He made a translation of that part by De Lorris, and 

 about one-sixth of De Menu's conclusion, condensing it from 22,000 to 

 7700 verses. The eglantere of Chaucer, " that gave so passing a deli- 

 cious smell," is the single sweet-briar rose of England; with the later 

 poets this flower becomes the eglantine. 



In the German "Book of Heroes" there is a story of a rose gar- 

 den at Worms surrounded by a single silken thread. The Princess 

 Chrymhilde promised to each knight who should successfully defend 

 it, and slay an attacking giant, a chaplet of roses and a Kiss. Hilde- 

 brandt, one of the knights, took the roses, but declined the kiss. 

 Another, a monk, not only took the kiss, but sued for one apiece for 

 all the members of his fraternity. To this the Princess consented, but 

 only after the valiant monk had '• fulfilled his tale" of giants, one for 

 each kiss. Indeed, the lyric poets from Anacreon to the present day 

 have reveled in roses, and the subject has become no more threadbare 

 with much handling than is the love they symbolize. 



In 1366 Pope Urban Y, wishing to bestow upon Jeanne, queen of 

 Sicily, a particular mark of his favor, instituted the ceremony of the 

 benediction of the rose. A golden rose was made ; it was in the form 

 of a rose to intimate how fragile and evanescent is this human life, and 

 constructed of the indestructible and incorruptible metal to indicate 

 the immortality of the soul — so say the soothsayers of the time. 



The rose was solemnly blessed in the sacristy, with incense and 

 holy water, with balm and musk. The Pope went afterward to his 

 chapel, carrying in his left hand the golden rose which had been pre- 

 sented to him by a cardinal deacon, while with his right hand he gave 

 the accustomed benedictions to the faithful. When the chapel was 

 reached he handed the rose to the cardinal again, who in his turn 

 handed it to a subordinate to be placed upon the altar. Mass was 



