***Sappho/Rose Ode?***
BCD
wrote an ode which, in translation, goes approximately
Would Jove appoint some flower to reign
In matchless beauty on the plain,
The Rose mankind will all agree
The Rose the Queen of Flowers should be.
Now I understand that "a don" has been consulted, who evidently knows of
no such work. Not having a "complete works of Sappho" at hand, I was
hoping that some light could be shed on the matter by some kind person
subscribing to this newsgroup.
Does the oeuvre of Sappho contain lines which could be translated as
above?
If not, does anyone know whence came these lines?
(If possible, could you "cc" my e-mail address when responding?:
odin...@csulb.edu )
Best Wishes,
--BCD.
Web Site: http://www.csulb.edu/~odinthor
Robert Stonehouse
>For at least two centuries, rose lovers have understood that Sappho
>wrote an ode which, in translation, goes approximately
>
> Would Jove appoint some flower to reign
> In matchless beauty on the plain,
> The Rose mankind will all agree
> The Rose the Queen of Flowers should be.
>
>Now I understand that "a don" has been consulted, who evidently knows of
>no such work. Not having a "complete works of Sappho" at hand, I was
>hoping that some light could be shed on the matter by some kind person
>subscribing to this newsgroup.
>
>Does the oeuvre of Sappho contain lines which could be translated as
>above?
The index to Lobel and Page's Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragmenta gives
five occurrences of 'brodon' (the Aeolic form of 'rhodon') in
Sappho, but looking them up produces nothing like this.
>
>If not, does anyone know whence came these lines?
Sorry, not I.
>
>(If possible, could you "cc" my e-mail address when responding?:
>odin...@csulb.edu )
>
>Best Wishes,
>
>--BCD.
>
>Web Site: http://www.csulb.edu/~odinthor
BCD
> The index to Lobel and Page's Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragmenta gives
> five occurrences of 'brodon' (the Aeolic form of 'rhodon') in
> Sappho, but looking them up produces nothing like this.
> >
> >If not, does anyone know whence came these lines?
>
> Sorry, not I.
***<sigh> Don't tell me that rosarians have been bubbled and troubled,
bambouzled and bit for some two centuries about these lines being
Sappho's... Ah, well-- 'Tis well an old age is out; time to begin a
new.
**Thanks for checking!
Robert Stonehouse
>Robert Stonehouse wrote:
>> The index to Lobel and Page's Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragmenta gives
>> five occurrences of 'brodon' (the Aeolic form of 'rhodon') in
>> Sappho, but looking them up produces nothing like this.
>> >
>> >If not, does anyone know whence came these lines?
>>
>> Sorry, not I.
>
>***<sigh> Don't tell me that rosarians have been bubbled and troubled,
>bambouzled and bit for some two centuries about these lines being
>Sappho's... Ah, well-- 'Tis well an old age is out; time to begin a
>new.
Casting around more or less at random, I find the following note on
Moschus 19 (Europa) line 70 in Neil Hopkinson's 'A Hellenistic
Anthology' (Cambridge):
'The rose was queen among flowers and a symbol of love. Europa
stands out amongst her companions like the rose amongst other
flowers. In plucking the rose she prefigures her own ravishment. At
Euripides 'Helen' 244 Helen is snatched while gathering roses.'
Indeed, there are roses in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (line 6)
before the seizure of Persephone - the first surviving use of the
word, though there is the rosy-fingered dawn in epic.
Hopkinson's note suggests he has some reference in mind, but alas
does not say what. Your poem seemed to me like a translation of an
epigram, and so I have looked in Page's OCT 'Epigrammata Graeca';
without success, but there may still be a needle in that haystack.
ew...@bcs.org.uk
BCD
called the rose the "Queen of Flowers." The lines in question had been
attributed--in rose literature--to Sappho since about the year 1800;
wherever they came from, I suppose that someone at some point called
them "Sapphic"--not meaning "of" Sappho but rather "like" Sappho--and
others misunderstood. If anyone runs across the origin of the lines
(reported earlier in this thread; not impressive enough to repeat), or
if anyone can come up with very early classical references to the Rose
as being "Queen of Flowers," this rosarian and author would be most
appreciative indeed!
Thanks very much, Robert, for checking around.
Best Wishes,
--BCD.
Web Site: http://www.csulb.edu/~odinthor
Robert Stonehouse
>BCD <odin...@csulb.edu> wrote:
>>Robert Stonehouse wrote:
>>> The index to Lobel and Page's Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragmenta gives
>>> five occurrences of 'brodon' (the Aeolic form of 'rhodon') in
>>> Sappho, but looking them up produces nothing like this.
It seemed fair in the circumstances to have a go at translating the
instances that were known before this century. (Much of the Sappho
we have comes from papyri found in Egypt and published in the 20th
century.) This reduces them to two - one, really, which is Lobel and
Page 55. The addressee is feminine.
'You will lie dead and no memory of you ever /
shall be, or ever after; for you have no share in the roses /
of Pieria; but, obscure even in the house of Hades, /
you will wander among the ghostly dead after you have flown away.'
(The words in line 2 which I translate 'or ever after' contain a
corruption in the text. Pieria was the birthplace of the Muses.)
The other is L&P 2, lines 5ff.
'There cool water splashes through branches /
of apple-trees, and with roses all the place /
is shaded, and quivering leaves /
sleep overtakes.'
Known from a quotation by Hermogenes, 2nd century AD rhetorician,
but he or the copyists left out the middle clause with the roses in
it. It was restored from a potsherd first published in 1937. A
special caveat about my translation: the verb I translate
'overtakes' appears once more in Sappho apparently governing a
dative, and I am assuming here it governs the quivering leaves which
are in the genitive.
...
>Casting around more or less at random, I find the following note on
>Moschus 19 (Europa) line 70 in Neil Hopkinson's 'A Hellenistic
>Anthology' (Cambridge):
>
>'The rose was queen among flowers and a symbol of love. Europa
>stands out amongst her companions like the rose amongst other
>flowers. In plucking the rose she prefigures her own ravishment. At
>Euripides 'Helen' 244 Helen is snatched while gathering roses.'
Looking in Liddell and Scott for the Greek words I can think of
meaning 'queen', which are the 'basil-' words and 'anassa', I don't
see any reference to a meaning 'supreme example of its kind'.
In Latin, Lewis and Short give three references for 'regina' in this
sense, all from Statius whom I have not got. (That's twice this week
- ought I to buy him?) If they knew of a second author who used it,
they might have given him a mention rather than Statius three,
perhaps?
>
>Indeed, there are roses in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter (line 6)
>before the seizure of Persephone - the first surviving use of the
>word, though there is the rosy-fingered dawn in epic.
Incidentally, I find the word 'rhodon' goes back to Mycenean times
in the form 'wordon' (L.R. Palmer, The Greek Language, page 44).
But it is a compound again, 'wo-do-we' = 'wordowen',
'rose-perfumed'.
ew...@bcs.org.uk
BCD
> [Much erudite and interesting material]
***Continuing thanks, and sustained cheering in hopes that you'll be
able to nab some classical author bestowing, or ancient text
recognizing, queenship vis-a-vis roses.
***Ye classicists, thanks for putting up with my query of perhaps
somewhat limited interest, though not quite off-topic. I will pay you
with what coin I have: A recent book (mine) darts a glance at (among
much much else) the Rose in Greece and Rome; I hope that the following
may prove interesting to you (I suppress the [pseudo-] scholarly
apparatus/references of the following quotations, which are from two
19th century French publications--one of them dated 1851, the other
1820). We see references to Sappho, among others; and "the time of
Pliny"--though perhaps not Pliny himself--is credited with calling the
Rose the Queen of Flowers.
***"With the Greeks, the history of the Rose seems less obscure [than
with the Egyptians]; and everyone believes that it was grown quite a
long time before Homer, who lived 800 years before the Christian era
began, because the great Greek poet writes in his *Iliad* of the
brilliant coloration of the rose to convey the rising of the sun--the
saffron which perfumes the air of his roses. Herodotus, three centuries
later, notes as well a province of Macedonia where roses with sixty
petals and a perfume more agreeable than that of other roses grew
wild--this seems equivocal." "It is only at this stage that we can find
some at least slightly certain evidences of the rose-culture passed on
to them from Egypt. The frequent use which they made of flowers in
sacrifices, in public ceremonies, and even in their meals, doesn't allow
us to doubt that this culture [of rose growing] was wide-spread and
attended to, though we are in the dark about their flower-beds and
greenhouses. Several places in Greece took their names from the flowers
they chose to grow. The city of Rhodes, according to the testimony of
several authors, was so called because of the quantity of roses grown in
the neighborhood. Pausanias, who left us very precious details on these
lands, confirms this. With these people, inclined to voluptuousness as
much by the influence of the climate as by that of their religion, the
rose was considered to be the aristocrat of all flowers; it was called
by the ancients the 'Splendor of Plants' and, since the time of Pliny,
it has been regarded as the Queen of Flowers, as well as a universal
panacea. Sappho and Anacreon composed odes in its glory, and several
peoples agree in giving it a supernatural origin. Protected by the
beautiful Grecian sky, it was placed on the top rung of Flowers, and
occupied in the empire of Flora a place which it never ought to lose."
"The Romans also grew the Rose from very early times. It was, as with
the Greeks, the Queen of Flowers... [etc., etc. ,etc.]". The Romans
imported roses from Egypt, and at length evidently also "forced" them in
hothouses heated by hot-water pipes!--or so say my authors.
***Thanks for your indulgence! Further details will be gratefully
received.
Robert Stonehouse
...
> We see references to Sappho, among others; and "the time of
>Pliny"--though perhaps not Pliny himself--is credited with calling the
>Rose the Queen of Flowers.
I wonder if there is a poem by Statius in Sapphics about this.
According to the OCD, there is one poem in Sapphics in the Silvae -
also one in Alcaics. The Pliny mentioned would presumably be the
Elder - Natural History Pliny. His dates (AD 23/24-79) fit well with
Statius (AD 45-96). Several references to him in Lewis and Short
under 'rosa' and similar words - also to Martial the poet, AD
40(?)-104(?). The younger Pliny (AD 61-112(?)) fits not quite so
well in date and much less well in subject: letters and a panegyric
on Trajan. I can get hold of Statius, or Martial for that matter.
Pliny's Natural History, being so big, is a rarity.
Come to think of it, Martial as an epigrammatist could be a good
candidate.
...
> Sappho and Anacreon composed odes in its glory, and several
>peoples agree in giving it a supernatural origin.
The poems I have found mention it in very honourable fashion, but
they are not fundamentally about the rose - it is not the subject of
the poem. Maybe this author, in his enthusiasm, has been led into
giving us the impression that it is.
>Protected by the
>beautiful Grecian sky, it was placed on the top rung of Flowers, and
>occupied in the empire of Flora a place which it never ought to lose."
>"The Romans also grew the Rose from very early times. It was, as with
>the Greeks, the Queen of Flowers... [etc., etc. ,etc.]". The Romans
>imported roses from Egypt, and at length evidently also "forced" them in
>hothouses heated by hot-water pipes!--or so say my authors.
On the Homeric Hymn to Demeter line 6, N.J. Richardson notes 'The
name is properly applied to the cultivated rose, but is here
apparently used of the wild kind, unless this is simply fantasy'. He
refers to the Real-Encyclopaedie otherwise known as Pauly-Wissowa,
7.775.64ff., article by Olck. This would apply to all the scenes
where women are kidnapped in landscapes including roses.
A number of plants in the garden of the Roman palace at Fishbourne
have been identified, but I do not remember if there were roses
there. Nisbet and Hubbard on Horace Odes 1.38.4, 'do not go seeking
where the rose lingers latest' note 'The rose in Italy was normally
a spring flower and died off in the heat of summer'. They quote
Theophrastus' History of Plants 6.8.2 'The rose ... appears last and
leaves off first of the spring (plants?); for its flowering is
short.' It sounds a natural for the climate of Britain - odd for a
plant originating in Egypt.
They refer to Seneca, Letters 122.7, a list of unnatural practices:
'Do they not live against nature who exchange their dress with
women? Do they not live against nature who want a rose in winter and
by applications of warm water and modification of winter heating
anticipate a spring flower?' and so on.
Can anyone confirm or deny my translation of 'concupiscunt rosam
fomentoque aquarum calentium et calorum apta mutatione brumalium
florem vernum concipiunt'? It seems to me bold but fair to say he
means 'modifying the winter heating system'.
ew...@bcs.org.uk
BCD
> BCD <odin...@csulb.edu> wrote:
> ...
> > We see references to Sappho, among others; and "the time of
> >Pliny"--though perhaps not Pliny himself--is credited with calling the
> >Rose the Queen of Flowers.
>
***This would very efficiently explain a lot!
> >The Romans
> >imported roses from Egypt, and at length evidently also "forced" them in
> >hothouses heated by hot-water pipes!--or so say my authors.
>
> [...]
> A number of plants in the garden of the Roman palace at Fishbourne
> have been identified, but I do not remember if there were roses
> there. Nisbet and Hubbard on Horace Odes 1.38.4, 'do not go seeking
> where the rose lingers latest' note 'The rose in Italy was normally
> a spring flower and died off in the heat of summer'.
***The commentator is right in his "normally," and is thinking of the
various wild European roses; but the rose--which still exists--called
'Bifera' is dated by Horticulture back to Roman times, and there is some
supposition that it arose in Egypt or the Levant or possibly Spain--in
short, just about anywhere along the Mediterranean coast except the
areas of Italy and Greece; as I need not tell classicists, its
interesting characteristic is that it is "twice-bearing" (indeed, with
attentive culture, it can be forced to bloom four times a year). For
what it's worth, 'Bifera' is included in the (trying-to-be) Roman garden
at the Getty Museum here in Southern California at Malibu.
> [...]
> They refer to Seneca, Letters 122.7, a list of unnatural practices:
> 'Do they not live against nature who exchange their dress with
> women? Do they not live against nature who want a rose in winter and
> by applications of warm water and modification of winter heating
> anticipate a spring flower?' and so on.
>
> Can anyone confirm or deny my translation of 'concupiscunt rosam
> fomentoque aquarum calentium et calorum apta mutatione brumalium
> florem vernum concipiunt'? It seems to me bold but fair to say he
> means 'modifying the winter heating system'.
***As a horticultural historian cheering from the sidelines, I can at
least state that this practice has long been understood as having been
undertaken by the Romans...
With Continuing Thanks and Interest,
Dr. Axel Bergmann
> The matter at hand is that rosarians are trying to determine who first
> called the rose the "Queen of Flowers." [.....]
Hi, BCD !
You'll find it, I'd suppose, useful to consult the old but good book by
M. J. SCHLEIDEN, *Die Rose. Geschichte und Symbolik in ethnographischer
und kulturhistorischer Beziehung*, Leipzig: Verlag von Wilhelm Engelmann,
1873 = (facsimile reprint:) Walluf bei Wiesbaden: Dr. Martin Sändig oHG.,
1973.
To which same book (pp. 44 - 45) I owe the information that the rose has
been called *Queen of Flowers* by Achilleus Tatios (a Greek rhetor who
lived at the end of the 2nd century A.D.), *Tà katà Leukíppe:n kaì
Kleitophô:nta*, lib. II cap. 1 [ed.: E. VILBORG, 1955], and by some
pseudo-Anakreon (who lived in the times of the western Roman Empire), *In
Myrillam*: "Rose, du bist der Blumen Königin, du, Myrilla, die Rose unter
den Jungfrauen" (German translation from SCHLEIDEN, op. cit., p. 44) =
"rose, thou art the Queen of Flowers, <in the same way as> thou, Myrilla,
<art> the rose among virgins".
Hth.
Namaste,
Axel
BCD
Thanks very much indeed for the very useful information, which I will
pass on to the rose community!
All the Best,
--BCD.
Web Site: http://www.csulb.edu/~odinthor