ROSE

SONG [PARSON EVANS]

There will we make our beds of ROSES

And a thousand fragrant posies.

—Merry Wives of Windsor [Act III, sc. 1]

OLIVIA

Cæsario, by the ROSES of the spring,

By maidhood, honour, truth, and everything,

I love thee . . .

—Twelfth Night [Act III, sc. 1]

DIANA

When you have our ROSES,

You barely leave us thorns to prick ourselves

And mock us with our bareness.

—All’s Well That Ends Well [Act IV, sc. 2]

HOTSPUR

To put down Richard, that sweet lovely ROSE,

And plant this thorn, this canker, Bolingbroke.

—Henry IV, Pt. 1 [Act I, sc. 3]

ROSES have THORNS

and silver fountains mud,

And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.

—Sonnet XXXV

The ROSE looks fair, but fairer we it deem

For that sweet odour that doth in it live.

The canker-blooms have full as deep a dye

As the perfumed tincture of the ROSES,

Hang on such THORNS,

and play as wantonly

When summer’s breath

their masked buds discloses;

But, for their virtue only is their show,

They live unwoo’d and unrespected fade;

Die to themselves—sweet ROSES do not so;

Of their sweet deaths are sweetest odours made.

—Sonnet LIV

TITANIA

The seasons alter: hoary-headed frosts

Fall in the fresh lap of the CRIMSON ROSE.

—A Midsummer Night’s Dream [Act II, sc. 1]

FLUTE/THISBE

Of colour like the RED ROSE

on triumphant brier.

—A Midsummer Night’s Dream [Act III, sc. 1]

MISTRESS QUICKLY

Your colour, I warrant you,

is as RED AS ANY ROSE.

—Henry IV, Pt. 2 [Act II, sc. 4]

TYRRELL

Their lips were four RED ROSES on a stalk,

Which in their summer beauty

kiss’d each other.

—Richard III [Act IV, sc. 3]

More white and red than dove and ROSES are.

—Venus and Adonis

Nor did I wonder at the lily’s white,

Nor praise the deep vermilion of the ROSE.

—Sonnet XCVIII

O how her fear did make her colour rise,

First red as ROSES that on lawn we lay,

Then white as lawn, the ROSES took away.

—Lucrece

Why should poor beauty indirectly seek

ROSES of shadow,

since his ROSE is true?

—Sonnet LXVII

BRUTUS

. . . Or veil’d dames

Commit the war of WHITE and DAMASK in

Their nicely-gawded cheeks to the wanton spoil

Of Phoebus’ burning kisses.

—Coriolanus [Act II, sc. 1]

That beauty’s ROSE might never die.

—Sonnet I

AUTOLYCUS

Gloves as sweet as DAMASK ROSES.

—Winter’s Tale [Act IV, sc. 3]

WOOER

I’ll bring a bevy,

A hundred black-eyed maids that love as I do,

With chaplets on their heads of daffadillies,

With cherry lips and cheeks of

DAMASK ROSES . . .

—Two Noble Kinsmen [Act IV, sc. 1]

BOYET

Blow like sweet ROSES in this summer air.

PRINCESS

How blow? how blow? Speak to be understood.

BOYET

Fair ladies mask’d are ROSES in their bud;

Dismask’d, their DAMASK

sweet commixture shown,

Are angels veiling clouds, or ROSES blown.

—Love’s Labour’s Lost [Act V, sc. 2]

PHEBE

A little riper and more lusty red

Than that mix’d in his cheek;

’twas just the difference

Between the CONSTANT RED and

MINGLED DAMASK.

—As You Like It [Act III, sc. 5]

I have seen ROSES DAMASK’d, red and white,

But no such ROSES see I in her cheeks.

—Sonnet CXXX

Nothing this wide universe I call

Save thou, my ROSE; in it thou art my all.

—Sonnet CIX

Who, when he lived, his breath and beauty set

Gloss on the ROSE, smell to the violet.

—Venus and Adonis

GOWER

Even her art sisters, the natural ROSES.

—Pericles [Act V, Chorus]

YORK

Then will I raise aloft

the MILK-WHITE ROSE,

With whose sweet smell the air shall be perfumed.

—Henry VI, Pt. 2 [Act I, sc. 1]

OPHELIA

The expectancy and ROSE of the fair state.

—Hamlet [Act III, sc. 1]

What though the ROSE has prickles?

yet ’tis plucked.

—Venus and Adonis

LORD

Let one attend him with a silver basin

Full of ROSE-WATER

and bestrew’d with flowers.

—Taming of the Shrew [Induction, sc. 1]

PETRUCHIO

I’ll say she looks as clear

As morning ROSES

newly wash’d with dew.

—Taming of the Shrew [Act II, sc. 1]

FRIAR LAURENCE

The ROSES in thy lips and cheeks shall fade

To paly ashes.

—Romeo and Juliet [Act IV, sc. 1]

ROMEO

Remnants of packthread

and old CAKES OF ROSES

Were thinly scatter’d, to make up a show.

—Romeo and Juliet [Act V, sc. 1]

QUEEN ISABEL

But soft, but see, or rather do not see,

My fair ROSE wither.

—Richard II [Act V, sc. 1]

JULIET

What’s in a name? That which we call a ROSE

By any other name would smell as sweet.

—Romeo and Juliet [Act II, sc. 2]

CLEOPATRA

Against the blown ROSE

may they stop their nose

That kneel’d unto the buds.

—Antony and Cleopatra [Act III, sc. 13]

BOULT

For flesh and blood, sir, white and red, you

shall see a ROSE; and she were a ROSE indeed!

—Pericles [Act IV, sc. 6]

HAMLET

Such an act

That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,

Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the ROSE

From the fair forehead of an innocent love,

And sets a blister there.

—Hamlet [Act III, sc. 4]

OTHELLO

Thou young and ROSE-lipp’d cherubim.

—Othello [Act IV, sc. 2]

TIMON

ROSE-cheeked youth.

—Timon of Athens [Act IV, sc. 3]

OTHELLO

When I have pluck’d the ROSE,

I cannot give it vital growth again,

It needs must wither. I’ll smell it on the tree.

—Othello [Act V, sc. 2]

The ROSES fearfully in THORNS did stand,

One blushing shame, another white despair;

A third, nor red nor white, had stol’n of both

And to his robbery had annex’d thy breath.

—Sonnet XCIX

A sudden pale,

Like lawn being spread upon the blushing ROSE,

Usurps her cheek.

—Venus and Adonis

HAMLET

With two PROVINCIAL ROSES

on my razed shoes.

—Hamlet [Act III, sc. 2]

ORSINO

For women are as ROSES, whose fair flower

Being once display’d doth fall that very hour.

—Twelfth Night [Act II, sc. 4]

DON JOHN

I had rather be a canker in a hedge

than a ROSE in his grace.

—Much Ado About Nothing [Act I, sc. 3]

THESEUS

But earthlier happy is the ROSE distill’d

Than that which withering on the virgin thorn

Grows, lives, and dies in single blessedness.

—A Midsummer Night’s Dream [Act I, sc. 1]

Their silent war of lilies and of ROSES.

—Lucrece

TITANIA

Some to kill cankers in the MUSK-ROSE buds.

—A Midsummer Night’s Dream [Act II, sc. 3]

OBERON

Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,

With sweet MUSK-ROSES and with eglantine.

—A Midsummer Night’s Dream [Act II, sc. 1]

TITANIA

Stick MUSK-ROSES in thy sleek, smooth head.

—A Midsummer Night’s Dream [Act IV, sc. 1]

JULIA

The air hath starved the ROSES in her cheeks.

—Two Gentlemen of Verona [Act IV, sc. 4]

CONSTANCE

Of Nature’s gifts,

thou may’st with lilies boast,

And with the half-blown ROSE.

—King John [Act III, sc. 1]

Shame, like a canker in the fragrant ROSE,

Doth spot the beauty of thy budding name.

—Sonnet XCV

BIRON

At Christmas I no more desire a ROSE

Than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled mirth,

But like of each thing that in season grows.

—Love’s Labour’s Lost [Act I, sc. 1]

BASTARD

My face so thin,

That in mine ear I durst not

stick a ROSE.

—King John [Act I, sc. 1]

TOUCHSTONE

He that sweetest ROSE will find,

Must find Love’s prick and Rosalind.

—As You Like It [Act III, sc. 2]

LYSANDER

How now, my love! Why is your cheek so pale?

How chance the ROSES there do fade so fast?

—A Midsummer Night’s Dream [Act I, sc. 1]

KING FERDINAND

So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not

To those fresh morning drops upon the ROSE.

—Love’s Labour’s Lost [Act IV, sc. 3]

ANTONY

Tell him he wears the ROSE

OF YOUTH upon him.

—Antony and Cleopatra [Act III, sc. 13]

LAERTES

O ROSE OF MAY,

Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!

—Hamlet [Act IV, sc. 5]

SONG [BOY]

ROSES, their sharp spines being gone,

Not royal in their smells alone

But in their hue.

—Two Noble Kinsmen [Act I, sc. 1]

Glazed with crystal gate the glowing ROSES

That flame through water which their hue encloses.

—A Lover’s Complaint

HENRY VI

Let me be umpire in this doubtful strife.

I see no reason, if I wear this ROSE

[*dons a red rose]

That any one should therefore

be suspicious . . .

—Henry VI, Pt. 1 [Act 4, sc. 1]

RICHARD PLANTAGENET

I cannot rest

Until the WHITE ROSE that I wear be dyed

Even in the lukewarm blood of Henry’s heart.

—Henry VI, Pt. 3 [Act I, sc. 5]

I know what THORNS

the growing ROSE defends.

—Lucrece

HENRY VI

The RED ROSE AND THE WHITE

are on his face,

The fatal colours of our striving houses:

The one his purple blood right well resembles;

The other his pale cheeks, methinks,

presenteth:

Wither one ROSE, and let the other flourish;

If you contend, a thousand lives must wither.

—Henry VI, Pt. 3 [Act II, sc. 5]

CLARENCE

Father of Warwick, know you what this means?

[Taking his RED ROSE out of his hat]

Look here, I throw my infamy at thee.

—Henry VI, Pt. 3 [Act V, sc. 1]

EMILIA

Of all flowers

Methinks a ROSE is best.

WOMAN

Why, gentle madam?

EMILIA

It is the very emblem of a maid.

—Two Noble Kinsmen [Act II, sc. 2]

That even for anger makes the Lily pale,

And the red ROSE blush at her own disgrace.

—Lucrece

RICHARD PLANTAGENET

From off this brier pluck

a WHITE ROSE with me.

SOMERSET

Pluck a RED ROSE from off this thorn with me.

WARWICK

I pluck this WHITE ROSE with Plantagenet.

SUFFOLK

I pluck this RED ROSE with young Somerset.

VERNON

The fewest ROSES are cropp’d

from the tree . . .

VERNON

I pluck this pale and maiden blossom here,

Giving my verdict on the WHITE ROSE side.

SOMERSET

Prick not your finger as you pluck it off,

Lest bleeding you do paint

the WHITE ROSE RED.

LAWYER

In sign whereof I pluck a WHITE ROSE too.

SOMERSET

Here in my scabbard, meditating that

Shall dye your WHITE ROSE

IN A BLOODY RED.

PLANTAGENET

Meantime your cheeks do

counterfeit our ROSES,

For pale they look with fear.

SOMERSET

’Tis not for fear but anger that thy cheeks

Blush for pure shame to counterfeit our ROSES.

PLANTAGENET

Hath not thy ROSE A CANKER, Somerset?

SOMERSET

Hath not thy ROSE A THORN, Plantagenet?

SOMERSET

Well, I’ll find friends to wear

my BLEEDING ROSES.

PLANTAGENET

And, by my soul, this

PALE AND ANGRY ROSE,

As cognizance of my blood-drinking hate.

WARWICK

Will I upon thy party wear this ROSE.

And here I prophesy: this brawl to-day,

Grown to this faction in the Temple-garden,

Shall send between the RED ROSE

AND THE WHITE

A thousand souls to death and deadly night.

—Henry VI, Pt. 1 [Act 2, sc. 4]

RICHMOND

And then, as we have ta’en the sacrament,

We will unite the WHITE ROSE

AND THE RED:

Smile heaven upon this fair conjunction,

That long have frown’d upon their enmity!

What traitor hears me, and says not Amen?

—Richard III [Act V, sc. 5]