Corona Virus isolation ~ Day 283: Christmas Eve roses & berries

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roses 

arranged by Tom White

photo by Styrous®

 

A rose is a woody perennial flowering plant of the genus Rosa, in the family Rosaceae, or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred species and tens of thousands of cultivars. They form a group of plants that can be erect shrubs, climbing, or trailing, with stems that are often armed with sharp prickles.               

    

The name rose comes from French, itself from Latin rosa, which was perhaps borrowed from Oscan, from Greek ρόδον rhódon (Aeolic βρόδον wródon), itself borrowed from Old Persian wrd- (wurdi), related to Avestan varəδa, Sogdian ward, Parthian wâr.         

   

The cultural history of the rose has led to it being used often as a symbol. In ancient Greece, the rose was closely associated with the goddess Aphrodite. In the Iliad, Aphrodite protects the body of Hector using the "immortal oil of the rose" and the archaic Greek lyric poet Ibycus praises a beautiful youth saying that Aphrodite nursed him "among rose blossoms". The second-century AD Greek travel writer Pausanias associates the rose with the story of Adonis and states that the rose is red because Aphrodite wounded herself on one of its thorns and stained the flower red with her blood.     

 

 

Aphrodite

 

Book Eleven of the ancient Roman novel The Golden Ass by Apuleius contains a scene in which the goddess Isis, who is identified with Venus, instructs the main character, Lucius, who has been transformed into a donkey, to eat rose petals from a crown of roses worn by a priest as part of a religious procession in order to regain his humanity.        

 

  

 Isis

fifteenth or fourteenth century BCE

 

 

Following the Christianization of the Roman Empire, the rose became identified with the Virgin Mary. The color of the rose and the number of roses received has symbolic representation. The rose symbol eventually led to the creation of the rosary and other devotional prayers in Christianity.         

The Wars of the Roses were a series of English civil wars for control of the throne of England fought between supporters of two rival cadet branches of the royal House of Plantagenet: the House of Lancaster, represented by a red rose, and the House of York, represented by a white rose. Eventually, the wars eliminated the male lines of both families.            

 

Roses are a favored subject in art and appear in portraits, illustrations, on stamps, as ornaments or as architectural elements. Henri Fantin-Latour was also a prolific painter of still life, particularly flowers including roses. The rose 'Fantin-Latour' was named after the artist. Other impressionists including Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne and Pierre-Auguste Renoir have paintings of roses among their works.      

 

In 1908, Henry Albert Payne was commissioned to produce a wall painting for the decoration of the Palace of Westminster. His work, Plucking the Red and White Roses in the Old Temple Gardens, is an allegory on the Wars of the Roses and now hangs in the Palace's East Corridor.      

 

 

Plucking the Red and White Roses in the Old Temple Gardens - 1910  
 painting by Henry Albert Payne

 

 

"Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose." was written by Gertrude Stein as part of the 1913 poem Sacred Emily, which appeared in the 1922 book Geography and Plays. In that poem, the first "Rose" is the name of a person.             

                    

       

Christmas Eve in other languages:       

Arabic - ليلة عيد الميلاد         

Catalan - Nit de Nadal         

Chinese - 平安夜               

Dutch - kerstavond          

French - Réveillon de Noël

German - Heiligabend        

Greek - παραμονή Χριστουγέννων          

Hawaiian - Mele Kalikimaka                     

Hebrew - ערב חג המולד           

Irish - Oíche Nollag             

Japanese - クリスマス・イブ or Kurisumasu ibu             

Korean = 크리스마스 이브               

Norweigen - Julaften       

Persian - شب کریسمس        

Polish - Wigilia           

Portuguese - Véspera de Natal            

Russian - канун Рождества        

Spanish - Nochebuena               

Turkish - Noel arifesi            

Ukranian - Святвечір         

Zulu - usuku ngaphambi kukakhisimusi           

Viewfinder links:            
                  
Corona Virus articles              

William Shakespeare             

Gertrude Stein      
Styrous®       
Tom White             
            
Net links:            
                 
Taste of Home ~ 75 Christmas Eve Dinner Ideas            
Time & Date ~Christmas Eve in the United States             
            

YouTube links:            
                   

Kelly Clarkson ~ Christmas Eve (Official Audio)         

Céline Dion ~ Christmas Eve (Official Audio)         

Yamashita Tatsuro ~ Christmas Eve           

Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Christmas Eve / Sarajevo        

            

          

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," Juliet.

                             ~ William Shakespeare

  
      
Styrous® ~ Thursday, December 24, 2020         

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The Doc is in

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