Having roses bloom right outside your window is the nicest thing ever🌹, the smell of them really does travel through the room, i wouldn’t of thought that they’d smell so strong but they rly do during spring/summer. Ill show you what they look like when they finally bloom! Its winter here now though so theyre just thorns🥀.. which i love too. It reminds me of a story I used to read called ‘the nightingale and the rose’ by oscar wilde. It disturbed me a little which is probably why i so visually remember it so well,dont you find that too? That you specifically remember those memories where you found something very vaguely unsettling, like the treehouse of horror simpsons episode’s or if anybody watched courage the cowardly dog 🙃
Anyway heres a short summary of the story, give it a read if u like (no worries if not!)
The narrator is an unnamed man. In the story, he is referred to as the Student👨🎓. When the story begins, the Student wanders around a rose garden, pining for a girl 👩. The girl promised to dance with him if he brought her a red rose, but he can’t find any. He can’t believe that, in such a large garden, the roses are all white. If he doesn’t dance with the girl, he knows he’ll be unhappy forever. From a nearby tree, a nightingale 🕊️ listens to the Student’s depressing story. She sings about love all the time, but she didn’t think she’d ever understand it. Now, she has an epiphany. She can’t believe how much the Student looks like the typical hero in romance stories. He has brown hair, pale skin, rich red lips, and a melancholy expression. She thinks that the Student is perfect ♥️
The Student only has until the following night to find a red rose 🌹 . It’s the night of the royal ball, and this is his final chance to impress the girl. There’s no point in attending the ball if he can’t dance with her. Someone else will court the girl and marry her, and the Student will die from a broken heart 💔. All the while, the nightingale listens to his sorry tale, and she decides that there must be some way to help him win the girl’s heart.
The nightingale mulls over what to do while the Student lies down on the grass and cries. A lizard and a butterfly pass by, and they wonder what all the fuss is about. Soon, even garden flowers talk amongst themselves about this tragic, heartbroken boy. However, when the nightingale tells the garden animals about the red rose, they laugh. The lizard and the butterfly think that he’s being ridiculous, and they go about their merry business. Meanwhile, the nightingale flies around the garden, looking for a red rose. Various garden trees direct her to rosebushes, but she only finds yellow and white roses. It’s not until she reaches a tree under the Student’s bedroom window that she finds red roses. 🍃 However, the tree doesn’t give away roses for free. To earn a red rose, the nightingale must complete various deadly tasks. 🪦
The nightingale asks for more information about these tasks. The tree explains that she must impale herself on a rose thorn and die singing a love song. Ble-eding beside the tree will turn a white rose into a red one. If she’s prepared to sacrifice herself for love, then she deserves the red rose. Otherwise, she’s wasting the tree’s time and she should leave him alone.
At first, the nightingale refuses to kill herself. She claims that no one should die for love. However, the more she thinks about the Student and his plight, the more she understands that love means selflessness. If she isn’t prepared to sacrifice herself, then she doesn’t care enough. Making the Student happy is more important than her own survival. The nightingale returns to the Student. He’s still lying on the grass, crying. He doesn’t see any way out of his predicament. The nightingale tells him that she has a plan, and that everything will work out in the end. She promises to get him a red rose, but there’s a condition attached to her generosity.
The nightingale will only sacrifice herself if she’s sure that the Student truly loves the girl. He must love the girl unconditionally and purely. He must be willing to marry her, and he must be willing to die for her. However, there’s a problem—the Student doesn’t know what she’s saying. It’s not just because she’s a bird and he’s a human. It’s because he doesn’t understand the language of love.
The nightingale thinks that the Student understands her. She sheds her blo-od and dies by pressing herself against a thorn. 🥀🩸💀The Student, ignorant to the nightingale’s sacrifice, takes up the rose and rushes to find the girl. The girl dismisses the Student because he’s poor, lowly, and unworthy of her. She chooses a lover who can buy her fancy jewelry instead 💍💎. The Student decides that he’ll never understand love or women and he throws the rose away. He doesn’t believe that love exists anymore. A cart runs over the rose petals, crushing them. The sacrifice was for nothing, and the Student has no idea what the nightingale sacrificed for him. If we love someone purely, we will act for them, whether they know it or not.
🥰❤️
It always made me so amazed how one of my favourite love stories was one between a human and a bird :,)
TLDR; i like the thorns outside my window
