- "Violets are blue" redirects here. For the James Patterson novel, click here.
Roses are red can refer to a specific poem, or a class of doggerel poems inspired by that poem. The poem is:
- Roses are red,
- Violets are blue,
- Sugar is sweet;
- And so are you
The origins of the poem may be traced to the following lines written in 1590 by Sir Edmund Spenser from his epic The Faerie Queene (Book Three, Canto 6, Stanza 6):
- It was upon a Sommers shynie day,
- When Titan faire his beames did display,
- In a fresh fountaine, farre from all mens vew,
- She bath'd her brest, the boyling heat t'allay;
- She bath'd with roses red, and violets blew,
- And all the sweetest flowres, that in the forrest grew.
- It was upon a summer's shiny day,
- When Titan fair his beams did display,
- In a fresh fountain, far from all mens' view,
- She bathed her breast, the boiling heat to allay;
- She bathed with roses red, and violets blue,
- And all the sweetest flowers, that in the forest grew.
A nursery rhyme significantly closer to the modern cliché Valentine's Day poem can be found in Gammer Gurton's Garland, a collection of English nursery rhymes. (1783)
- Roses are red, diddle, diddle
- Lavender's blue
- If you will have me, diddle, diddle
- I will have you.
Victor Hugo was likely familiar with Spenser, but may not have known the English nursery rhyme when, in 1862, he published the novel, Les Miserables. Hugo was a poet as well as a novelist, and within the text of the novel are many songs. One sung by the character, Fantine contains this refrain, in the 1862 English translation:
- We will buy very pretty things
- A-walking through the faubourgs.
- Violets are blue, roses are red,
- Violets are blue, I love my loves.
The last two lines in the original French are:
- Les bleuets sont bleus, les roses sont roses,
- Les bleuets sont bleus, j'aime mes amours.
(Les Misérables, Fantine, Book Seven, Chapter Six)
References
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Friday September 05, 2008 at 07:42:17 PDT (GMT -0700)
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- Roses Are Red (album), an album by Bobby Vinton
- Roses Are Red (song), a song by Aqua
- Roses Are Red, a one-hit wonder by The Mac Band
- Roses Are Red (band), a band from Rochester, New York
- Roses are Red (novel), a novel by James Patterson
- Roses Are Red (film), a 1947 movie
- Roses are Red, Violets are Blue (album), an album by Trocadero
See also
- Roses are red, the poem
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Last updated on Sunday October 05, 2008 at 21:34:25 PDT (GMT -0700)
View this article at Wikipedia.org - Edit this article at Wikipedia.org - Donate to the Wikimedia Foundation
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