THE PATHOS OF THE ROSE IN POETRY 351 



Tears the Papbian shed, drop by drop for the drops of Adonis' 

 Blood, and on earth each drop, as it fell, grew into a blossom ; 

 Roses sprang from the blood, and the tears gave birth to the wind- 

 flower. 



Those beautiful similes, again, in which Homer and Virgil 

 likened a young man stricken by death upon the battlefield 

 to a poppy, or hyacinth, or olive broken from its stem, were 

 symbols, not of the short prime of beauty, but of its sudden 

 and unseasonable extinction ; nor was the rose, so far as I 

 remember, employed even in this way. That was reserved 

 for a modern poet, Ariosto, who compared the mouth of dying 

 Zerbino to a waning rose. 1 



Languidetta come rosa, 

 Rosa non colta in sua stagione, si ch' ella 

 Impallidisca in su la siepe ombrosa. 



Languid like a rose, 



A rose not plucked in her due season, so 

 That she must fade upon the dim hedgerows. 



Yet two passages may be noticed in which poets of a good 

 age compared the rose in her brief season to the fleeting 

 loveliness of youth. 2 



Kal rb p65ov Ka\6v tffri, Ka) 6 xpovos avr 



Kal rb tov Ka\6v tff'riv fv eifopt, Kal ra^v yqpa ' 



Kal /caAAos Ka\6v eVrt rb irai5i/cdj/, aAA' bXiyov 77. 



Fair is the rose, but time consumes her flower ; 

 Fair the spring violet, but soon it fades ; 

 And fair is boyish beauty, but short-lived. 



Ovid, perhaps with these lines in his memory, wrote as 

 follows : 3 



Nee violse semper, nee hiantia lilia florent ; 



Et viget amissa spina relicta rosa. 

 Et tibi jam cani venient, formose, capilli ; 

 Jam venient rugee qusa tibi corpus arent. 



1 Orl. Fur. xxiv. 80. 



2 Theocritus, Idyll xxiii. 29. This Idyll is probably not by Theocritus, 

 but by an imitator. 



3 Ars Amandi, ii. 115. 



