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| Rosa 'L.D. Braithwaite' |
Tomorrow Tuesday I am giving a talk at the
monthly meeting of the Vancouver Rose Society. We call ourselves Rosarians but
we are not a secret society with secret handshakes. We are a group of people
who are aging with few young persons to give the society new blood. As Brian
Minter often points out, silently without a word when asked about the decline
of gardening, he raises his smart phone.
Therein lies the blame -perhaps not. Who knows?
Except for wild species roses, most roses,
those old roses, hybrid teas, etc and etc, are like old-fashioned mistresses or
a gigolo’s female sponsor. They need care, cajoling and like cats they
sometimes ignore it all and disappear without saying goodbye. Less poetically
you might say that roses are not easy-care plants for your patio or condo
balcony. They require commitment. It is the fact that roses are really not all that easy that attracts me to them. As a photographer by profession I do not like the concept of point-and-shoot cameras. I like the complexity of dials and settings. And best of all roses have a rich history behind them that involves Napoleon's wife, the crusaders, Henry the 8th's flagship Mary Rose and even a famous cellist who picked her white rose before she died. There is a lot behind the name of a rose.
While preparing my talk for tomorrow
(something I have been mulling over with a tad of insomnia) I asked myself why
Umberto Eco’s fine début novel, The Name of the Rose was called that. I went
down to my computer to investigate. The answer to my question is like a
multi-petalled English Rose Rosa ‘L.D. Braithwaite’, extremely complex. In fact
Eco published a small tome called Postscript to The Name of a Rose and there is
even this: The Key to "The Name of the Rose" by Adele J. Haft, Jane G.
White, and Robert J. White, 1987.
In Eco’s Postcript to The Name of the Rose
I found this stupendous quote by a favourite poet of mine, Sor Juana Inez de la
Cruz ((12 November 1651 – 17 April 1695), who was a Mexican nun living in what
was then called New
Spain. In many respects Sister Juana (of the Hieronomyte Order)
was a proto feminist now almost largely forgotten (but not in Mexico) to that other Mexican
proto-feminist, the one with the moustache and one wide eyebrow.
Rosa que al prado, encarnada,
te ostentas presuntuosa
de grana y carmín bañada:
campa lozana y gustosa;
pero no, que siendo hermosa
también serás desdichada.
Red rose growing in the meadow,
you vaunt yourself bravely
bathed in crimson and carmine:
a
rich and fragrant show.
But no: Being fair,
You will be unhappy soon.