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PLANT-LORE OF SHAKESPEARE 
There are further allusions to the same Red and White 
Roses in “ 3rd Henry VI,” i. 1 and 2, ii. 5, and v. 1 ; “ 1st 
Henry VI,” iv. 1; and “ Richard III,” v. 4. 
There is no flower so often mentioned by Shakespeare as the 
Rose, and he would probably consider it the queen of flowers, 
for it was so deemed in his time. “ The Rose doth deserve 
the cheefest and most principall place among all flowers 
whatsoever, being not onely esteemed for his beautie, vertues, 
and his fragrant and odoriferous smell, but also because it is 
the honore and ornament of our English Scepter.” —Gerard. 
Yet the kingdom of the Rose even then was not undisputed ; 
the Lily was always its rival (see Lily), for thus sang Walter de 
Biblesworth in the thirteenth century—• 
“ En 50 verger troveroums les flurs 
Des queus issunt les doux odours (swote smel) 
Les herbes ausi pur medicine 
La flur de Rose, la flur de Liz (lilie) 
Liz vaut per royne, Rose pur piz.” 
But a little later the great Scotch poet Dunbar, who lived from 
1460 to 1520, that is, a century before Shakespeare, asserted the 
dignity of the Rose as even superior to the Thistle of Scotland. 
“Nor hold none other flower in sie dainty 
As the fresh Rose of colour red and white ; 
For if thou dost, hurt is thine honesty, 
Considering that no flower is so perfite, 
So full of virtue, pleasaunce, and delight, 
So full of blissful angelic beauty, 
Imperial birth, honour, and dignity.” 
Volumes have been written, and many more may still be 
written, on the delights of the Rose, but my present business 
is only with the Roses of Shakespeare. In many of the above 
passages the Rose is simply the emblem of all that is loveliest 
and brightest and most beautiful upon earth, yet always with 
the underlying sentiment that even the brightest has its dark 
side, as the Rose has its thorns; that the worthiest objects of 
our earthly love are at the very best but short-lived; that the 
