Sometimes when you are writing or working on a creative project things just come to you as THE WAY THINGS ARE. There is no arguing with them and you just can’t change them. Sometimes it’s a character getting unruly and other times it’s the title of the book.
In many ways, Sub Rosa is an awful title for my book. Almost across the board, my beta readers thought that title should be in the romance genre. (Yikes! Not where I was going at all!) Also, unlike “carpe diem” or “et tu, Brute?” Sub Rosa is not a commonly known Latin phrase. Its direct translation, which many with a passing acquaintance with word roots or a romance language can guess, is “under the rose.” That’s not particularly helpful in grasping its meaning.
Sub rosa’s definition is “happening or done in secret” or something that is done in confidence. The Merriam Webster dictionary adds, “Since ancient times, the rose has often been associated with secrecy. In ancient mythology, Cupid gave a rose to Harpocrates, the god of silence, to keep him from telling about the indiscretions of Venus. Ceilings of dining rooms have been decorated with carvings of roses, reportedly to remind guests that what was said at the table should be kept confidential. Roses have also been placed over confessionals as a symbol of the confidentiality of confession. Sub rosa entered the English language in the 17th century, and even before then, people were using the English version, ‘under the rose.’”
I can’t say where I first came across the phrase, but I remember seeing it in a Dan Brown book I read while working the register of a bookstore. The idea changed my perception of all the fairytale illustrations I had seen as a child. Sleeping Beauty was protected by secrecy in her tower and the Beast lay dying under the roses because Beauty broke an agreement made in confidence. And those aren’t the only tales with roses. They are in dozens of fairytales.
In addition, I’ve long been fascinated by the language of flowers and remember reading old etiquette books as a child and learning that yellow roses were for friendship while white stands for innocence. (When my father mentioned he didn’t know how to tell his partners he was quitting to start his own business, I jokingly suggested that he say it with flowers. We could send a scathing bouquet with a polite card and they wouldn’t have had a clue.) Roses have historically been used as symbols for everything from love, passion, and sensuality, to royalty and mysticism or religion. They’ve been eaten, put in cosmetics, decorated ceilings and moldings, used in heraldry, and sent as messages in bouquets.
So, when one of my characters insisted on bringing up the phrase sub rosa in an attempt to be charming, what other title could possibly compete with all the fairytale magic, history, and symbolism? After reading the book, most of my beta readers didn’t think I should change the title either. Here’s hoping we are all correct!🌹