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He rules out copulation in plants because “lust requireth a voluntary motion,” which plants
lack. If plants were able to mix sexually, it would have to be “more at command than that of
living creatures.” In other words, humans would have to intervene to make it happen. And
if plants did indeed have sex, Bacon speculated, “it were one of the most noble experiments
touching plants to find it out; for so you may have great variety of new fruits and flowers
yet unknown.” On the other hand, he states, “Grafting doth it not” because “it hath not
the power to make a new kind. For the scion ever over- ruleth the stock.” Thus, according to
Francis Bacon, grafting should not be confused with plant sex.The Rose as a Symbol of Mary
Ancient Greeks and Romans esteemed the rose as the most beautiful and fragrant of flowers
and associated it with Aphrodite and Venus, the classical goddesses of romantic love. Venus
was often depicted holding a rose or wearing a wreath of red and white roses. The associa-
tion of roses with romance reached its zenith in the literature of courtly love, in which rose
gardens and rose bushes became extended metaphors for the Beloved, as in “The Romance
of the Rose” discussed earlier.
During the early years of the Eastern Orthodox Church, Mary assimilated many of the
floral attributes of Near Eastern and Greco- Roman agricultural goddesses (see Chapter 10).
The Byzantine Saint Ephrem described her as the sinless and inviolate “flower unfading.”^36
One of the first to apply the rose metaphor to Mary was the poet Sedulius, whose Latin imi-
tations of Virgil were written in the early sixth century. In his epic poem “Carmen Pascale”
(Song of the Church), which summarizes the four gospels, Sedulius describes Mary as a
rose that “springs forth from a thorny bush,” reminiscent of the biblical epithet “lily among
thorns” from the “Song of Songs” (2:2). ^37
Mary is also associated with roses through the “rosary,” derived from the Latin word
rosarium, meaning “rose garden” or “rose garland.”^38 The rosary is an extended prayer
addressed to Mary consisting of 150 “Hail Marys” recited in groups of ten, separated
by fifteen “Our Fathers,” and coupled with meditations on the mysteries of the lives of
Mary and Jesus. The term is also applied to the string of beads used to count the repeti-
tions. The story relating how the sequence of prayers to Mary came to be associated with
roses is contained in a very sweet late- thirteenth- century legend known as “Aves Seen as
Roses.”^39
In “Paradiso,” Dante describes Mary as the “Rose in which the word of God became
f lesh.”^40 Dante situates his beloved Beatrice within the petals of the immense celes-
tial White Rose that represents Heavenly Paradise, of which Mary is the Queen. With
this magnificent image, Dante unites the rose symbolism of the courtly love tradition
with that of the Marian tradition, which began in the early eleventh century with the
writings of Bernard of Clairvaux. In the sixteenth- century poem “Litany of Loreto,”
Mary is again referred to as the “Mystic Rose,” a title still in use today. Two of the most
beautiful artistic representations of Mary seated in her rose garden were painted in
the fifteenth century by Stefan Lochner and Martin Schongauer of Germany (Figures
11.2A and B).