Roses, Blood and Tears
Ever wondered why roses, out of all the beautiful flowers out there, are a symbol of love?
According to ancient Greek mythology, all roses were of only one color, white. Now legend says that one day Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, was bragging to the rest of the Olympians about how she could make anyone fall in love. Everyone was getting extremely annoyed by her constant boasting, so Zeus, being the biggest jerk that he was, decided to play a prank on her.
He used his power as the king of Olympus to make Aphrodite fall in love with Adonis, a mortal hunter. Aphrodite was now deeply in love with this man and worried for him as he did hard work for a living which was exactly the reason why Zeus specifically chose him.
During a hunt, Zeus made a violent wild boar attack him, leaving him mortally wounded. Aphrodite rushed towards her dying lover on her golden chariot (golden chariot pulled by swans on a path made of clouds, by the way, mustn’t leave that detail out), but by the time she reached him he had already passed away; as she mourned the death of her beloved, her tears mixed with Adonis’ blood and fell on the white roses lining the forest floor permanently staining them blood red and giving off a beautiful fragrance.
Like most words and ideas of today have been borrowed and iterated from mythologies of the past, the symbolism of red roses still to this day stands as a symbol of romance and love, forever immortalizing their usage. Now you know the origin of red roses as well as the prick who contributed to it.