When we look upon a red rose, thoughts of love arise. As a rose is beautiful and delicate, so also is love. However, love can also bring pain.
No Rose
On a cold, wintery day, a young student laments that he has no red roses in his garden, for he needs a red rose to woo the fair young lady whom he loves. If he brings one to the ball, the lady will dance with him all night.From its nest above, a nightingale hears the student’s lament. As it watches the student fling himself onto the grass and weep for his lost love, it chirps, “Here indeed is the true lover.”
In the next instant, the nightingale flies in search of a red rose. Flying into the middle of a grassy field, it finds a rose tree, that it asks for a rose. There’s just one problem. The tree has only white roses.
Undeterred, the nightingale continues on to the next rose tree guided by the sundial. It tells the tree that it will sing her sweetest song for a red rose. However, this tree carries only yellow roses.
Flying to a third rose tree under the student’s window, the nightingale requests a red rose. The tree responds that its roses are red but, because of the cold weather, it has no roses. Nevertheless, the Nightingale entreats for only one red rose.
Taking flight, it heads back to bid farewell to the student. Finding him on the grass, it cries: “All that I ask of in return is that you will be a true lover, for Love is wiser than Philosophy.” It bids goodbye to the oak tree where it made a nest and returns to the rose tree.
Once the moon rises in the night sky, the nightingale presses its breast against one of the rose tree’s thorns and sings. As it sings and its blood flows into the tree, a single rose begins to grow pink. Finally, in one last flourish, the nightingale bursts forth with music and presses itself onto the thorn. The student finds the red rose to present to his lady love. But his gift to the lady does not give him what he wanted, and what he receives he does not expect.
In this story, Wilde illustrates the power of selfless love. The story shows, as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry says in “The Little Prince,” “If you love a flower that lives on a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. All the stars are a-bloom with flowers.”
Consider the power of selfless love. Remember the nightingale, its song, and its willingness to give its all, spreading love even to the stars.
