‘I am the Rose of Sharon, the Lily of the Glen’
This is the second epigraph of the novel, An Ròs a Leigheas. But what, or who, is the Rose of Sharon?
Sharon is a plain on the east coast of Palestine, 89 km in length, to the south of Mount Carmel. Until the 18th century it was largely covered in forest but the area is now densely settled by the Jewish people; oranges and grapefruits grow plentifully in the fertile soil.
The rose plant began to grow in the northern hemisphere after the era of the dinosaurs but before Homo sapiens appeared – at a time between 200 million and 130 million years ago. Even so, botanists are in agreement that roses did not grow in Palestine in Biblical times. The Rose of Sharon was, therefore, not likely to have been a member of the genus Rosa – the Hebrew word in the Song of Songs translated as ‘rose’ is of uncertain meaning although it applies to a flowering plant of some kind.
The epigraph appears in the Song of Songs, one of the shortest books in the Old Testament but highly important nonetheless. Over the centuries it has been the subject of more scholarly writing than any of the other books of the Bible apart from Genesis and the Psalms. Many have considered it to be an allegory of God’s love for his Church. If we accept this interpretation, it may be the voice of Christ saying ‘I am the rose of Sharon’.
There are a few well known phrases in the book, e.g. a lily among thorns (more commonly ‘a rose among thorns’ in everyday speech); love is as strong as death; many waters cannot quench love. The Song has proved to be particularly important in Highland Christianity: ‘gus am bris an là’ (till the day breaks) is a familiar verse on gravestones; Patrick Grant and Catriona MacDonald have made reference to the Song of Songs in their Gaelic poetry; and the Reverend Calum Macleod used verses from the Song of Songs as the texts for two of the twenty-seven sermons in the book ‘An Iuchar Òir’ (1950).
As an epigraph, it draws out a deeper meaning in the title of the book, An Ròs a Leigheas, and complements the one given in my last blog ‘Oil of Roses’.