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Why the Rose?

Why the Rose?

The Rose is Sigma Tau Delta's official symbol.

From Shakespeare's "a rose by any other name would smell as sweet" to Robert Burns's "O my Luv's a red, red rose"; from Umberto Eco's In the Name of the Rose to Tupac Shakur's The Rose that Grew from Concrete; from Robert Frost's "The Rose is a rose/And always was a rose" to Gertrude Stein's "Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose"; the rose is everywhere, one of the most pervasive symbols in literature and culture.

What's in a name? That which we call a rose
by any other name would smell as sweet.
William Shakespeare

O my Luv's a red, red rose
Robert Burns

Rose is a rose is a rose is a rose.
Gertrude Stein

The rose is a rose,
And was always a rose.
But the theory now goes
That the apple's a rose
And the pear is, and so's
The plum, I suppose.
The dear only know
What will next prove a rose.
You, of course, are a rose--
But were always a rose.
Robert Frost

Rose of all Roses, Rose of all the World!
You, too, have come where the dim tides are hurled
Upon the wharves of sorrow, and heard ring
The bell that calls us on; the sweet far thing.
William Butler Yeats

People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad
with joy the whole time to have such things about us.
Iris Murdoch

The red rose whispers of passion,
And the white rose breathes of love;
O, the red rose is a falcon,
And the white rose is a dove.
John Boyle O'Reilly

A primrose by the river's brim
A yellow rose was to him.
And it was nothing more.
William Wordsworth