38 A BOOK ABOUT ROSES 



one. Other belles of the past had — so Anacreon, 

 Theocritus, and the poets generally inform us — 

 rosy arms, rosy necks, rosy feet, and — delicacy 

 forbids me to translate poSoKoXwos and poSoirvyo^. 

 ' Burning Sappho ' — it would have been more 

 gentlemanly, I think, if Byron had called her 

 gushing — crowned the Rose, Queen of Flowers, 

 being herself, according to Meleager, the Rose of 

 Poesy ; and her readers crowned themselves with 

 the Rose (one can't help wondering whether the 

 nimble earwig ever ran down their Grecian noses), 

 and vied with each other, at their banquets, €KTrXi]TTeiv 

 Tovs fSpovvovsy to astonish the Browns, with Roses. 

 There was a flower-market at Athens, as in Covent 

 Garden now, where the young swells bought for 

 the Honourable Miss Rhodanthe and for the Lady 

 Rhodopis bouquets of the blushing Rose; and then, 

 as now, he who would not or could not speak 

 boldly to the maid of Athens, 



TiLOTj jULOv, ads dyawQy 



declared his love by these — 



^ Token flowers that tell 

 What words can never speak so well. 



Rome, succeeding Greece in greatness, copying its 

 customs, and lighting her Roman candles from Greek 

 fire, showed an equal fondness for the Rose, Romans 



