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70
The Pleasures of Deed.
in the time of roses, ablaze with their exuberant loveliness. In gardens, the cultured rose is so prolific that it spreads literally like a weed. But it is worth suggestion that the word may be of the same stock as the Hebrew rôsh (translated rôs by the Septuagint), meaning chief, principal, while it is also the name of some flower; but of which flower is now unknown. Affinities of rôsh are not far to seek; Sanskrit, Raj(a), Ra(ja)ni; Latin, Rex, Reg(ina.)."
I leave it to Professor Max Muller to certify or correct for you the details of Mr. Cockburn's research,[1]—this main head of it I can positively confirm, that in old
- ↑ I had not time to quote it fully in the lecture; and in my ignorance, alike of Keltic and Hebrew, can only submit it here to the reader's examination. "The ancient Cognizance of the town confirms this etymology beyond doubt, with customary heraldic precision. The shield bears a Rose; with a Maul, as the exact phonetic equivalent for the expletive. If the herald had needed to express 'bare promontory,' quite certainly he would have managed it somehow. Not only this, the Earls of Haddington were first created Earls of Melrose (1619); and their Shield, quarterly, is charged, for Melrose, in 2nd and 3rd (fesse wavy between) three Roses gu. "Beyond this ground of certainty, we may indulge in a little excursus into lingual affinities of wide range. The root mol is clear enough. It is of the same stock as the Greek mála, Latin mul(tum), and Hebrew m'la. But, Rose? We call her Queen of Flowers, and since before the Persian poets made much of her, she was everywhere Regina Florum. Why should not the name mean simply the Queen, the Chief? Now, so few who know Keltic know also Hebrew, and so few who know Hebrew know also Keltic, that few know the surprising extent of the affinity that exists—clear as day—between the Keltic and the Hebrew vocabularies. That the word Rose may be a case in point is not hazardously speculative."
