Eighteenth-Century Rose Flowers and their Lessons

Though beautiful, rose flowers are prickly things. If we are careful, we may handle them with ease; otherwise, we will rip our skin. A rose flower's anatomy offers lessons, teaching us to respect something's life-essence, handling it gently. 

Like its beauty, a rose flower’s prick is essential. The thorny stem counters its delicately made flowerhead. The German philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, declared that there is 'no rose without a thorn’, pointing towards the central facets of the flower’s identity: sweet-smelling at the top, but harmful at the middle.

These flowers possess the potential to do harm, but this potential relies on the type of hand which handles them. A careless hand will rip the rose from a bush and hurt itself; the other hand is patient and receives the rose prudently. Therefore, pragmatism is key.

Many thorns also exist independently of themselves. Without the flower to adorn their stem, these thorns are ugly and brutal. Schopenhauer completed his aphoristic phrase, saying: ‘No rose without a thorn, but many a thorn without a rose’ [1]. We may pluck roses with the intention of possessing them – for example, to display them in ornamental jars. But we must leave thorns alone, making peace with their presence. For they are the bad living among the good.

The English poet, William Blake, considered the implication of flowery possession – that is, to cut a rose and keep it. In Songs of Innocence and of Experience (1794), Blake investigated nature’s rituals and explored their consequences.

The SICK ROSE

O Rose, thou art sick.

The invisible worm,

That flies in the night

In the howling storm:

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy:

And his dark secret love

Does thy life destroy. [2]

A bug’s relationship with the flower transforms its state: from health to sickness. The worm seeks repose, infiltrating the flower’s body. They force the flower into submission, as their ‘dark secret love’ destroys the rose, killing it. Thus, a being’s needs and requirements will bring another’s death and destruction.

Blake’s lesson is clear: to force submission is to destroy life. We must accept and respect the rose’s integrity, letting it live free without our spheres of influence. In so doing, we allow the flower to thrive, to reach its full potential, before succumbing to nature’s rituals – those which are not our own.

Notes:

[1] Arthur Schopenhauer, ‘On Various Subjects’ in R. J. Hollingdale (ed. and trans.), Arthur Schopenhauer: Essays and Aphorisms (London, 1970), p. 235.

[2] William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience (London, 2017), p. 72.

William Blake, The Sick Rose