Okay I used to HATE roses as a symbol of romance and shit or whatever until I learned why they’re signs of love bc it’s the most metal creation myth of all time
Well ok have y’all ever heard of the goddess of love Aphrodite?
So in greek mythology, all of the roses were white. all of em with no exception. white. remember this detail, it’s important to the story
so basically one day, our local love bitch Aphrodite was bragging to the other gods about how she could make anyone fall in love with anyone, because she was the goddess of love, and everyone got kind of irked with her bragging bc it was annoying, and Zeus (in his Zeus way) decided to pull a BIG PRANK on Aphrodite by making her fall in love w this mortal named Adonis. Adonis was a hunter, and this made Aphrodite CRAZY because hunting is super dangerous, and she was thirsty for Adonis right & she didn’t want him to die. EXCEPT therein lies the prank, bc Zeus MADE Adonis get gored by a wild boar (rip) and he died.
and here’s where the thing with the red roses come in. Bc all the roses are white, right? And right as Adonis was about to die, Aphrodite SWOOPED DOWN FROM THE HEAVENS in a golden chariot pulled by swans on a slide made of clouds (a cloud slide). as she rushed to his side, Aphrodite pricked her foot on a rose thorn and her blood landed on the petals of the rose, and all of the roses around her became red with her blood as she mourned for her dead lover who was killed in the hunt by a violent wild boar, all bc Zeus wanted Aphrodite to stop boasting.
tl;dr: red roses are a sign of romance bc they were originally white, but the red ones are red because they’re dipped in the blood of the goddess Aphrodite as she mourned the death of her lover
