Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama Part 121

=Roque= (1 _syl._), a blunt, kind-hearted old servitor to Donna Floranthe.--Colman, _The Mountaineers_ (1793).

=Roque Guinart=, a freebooter, whose real name was Pedro Rocha Guinarda.

He is introduced by Cervantes in _Don Quixote_.

=Rosa=, a village beauty, patronized by Lady Dedlock. She marries Mrs.

Rouncewell's grandson.--C. d.i.c.kens, _Bleak House_ (1853).

=Rosabelle= (3 _syl._), the lady's-maid of Lady Geraldine. Rosabelle promised to marry L'Eclair, the orderly of Chevalier Florian.--W.

Dimond, _The Foundling of the Forest_.

=Rosalind= (_i.e._ Rose Daniel), the shepherd la.s.s who rejected Colin Clout (the poet Spenser) for Menalcas (John Florio, the lexicographer, 1579). Spenser was at the time in his twenty-sixth year. Being rejected by Rosalind, he did not marry till he was nearly 41, and then we are told that Elizabeth "was the name of his mother, queen and wife"

(_Sonnet_, 74). In the _Faery Queen_, "the country la.s.s" (Rosalind) is introduced dancing with the Graces, and the poet says she is worthy to be the fourth (bk. vi. 10, 16). In 1595 appeared the _Epithala'mion_, in which the recent marriage is celebrated.--Ed. Spenser, _Shepheardes Calendar_, i., vi. (1579).

"Rosalinde" is an anagram for Rose Daniel, evidently a well-educated young lady of the north, and probably the "Lady Mirabella" of the _Faery Queen_, vi. 7, 8. Spenser calls her "the widow's daughter of the glen"

(ecl. iv.), supposed to be either Burnley or Colne, near Hurstwood, in Yorkshire. Ecl. i. is the plaint of Colin for the loss of Rosalind. Ecl.

vi. is a dialogue between Colin and Hobbinol, his friend, in which Colin laments, and Hobbinol tries to comfort him. Ecl. xii. is a similar lament to ecl. i. Rose Daniel married John Florio, the lexicographer, the "Holofernes" of Shakespeare.

_Rosalind_, daughter of the banished duke who went to live in the forest of Arden. Rosalind was retained in her uncle's court as the companion of his daughter, Celia; but when the usurper banished her, Celia resolved to be her companion, and, for greater security, Rosalind dressed as a boy, and a.s.sumed the name of Ganymede, while Celia dressed as a peasant girl, and a.s.sumed the name of Aliena. The two girls went to the forest of Arden, and lodged for a time in a hut; but they had not been long there when Orlando encountered them. Orlando and Rosalind had met before at a wrestling match, and the acquaintance was now renewed; Ganymede resumed her proper apparel, and the two were married, with the sanction of the duke.--Shakespeare, _As You Like It_ (1598).

Nor shall the griefs of Lear be alleviated, or the charms and wit of Rosalind be abated by time.--N. Drake, M.D., _Shakespeare and His Times_, ii. 554 (1817).

=Rosaline=, the niece of Capulet, with whom Romeo was in love before he saw Juliet. Mercutio calls her "a pale-hearted wench," and Romeo says she did not "grace for grace and love for love allow," like Juliet.--Shakespeare, _Romeo and Juliet_ (1598).

? Rosaline is frequently mentioned in the first act of the play, but is not one of the _dramatis personae_.

_Rosaline_, a lady in attendance on the princess of France. A sharp wit was wedded to her will, and "two pitch b.a.l.l.s were stuck in her face for eyes." Rosaline is called "a merry, nimble, stirring spirit." Biron, a lord in attendance on Ferdinand, king of Navarre, proposes marriage to her, but she replies:

You must be purged first, your sins are racked ...

Therefore if you my favor mean to get, A twelvemonth shall you spend, and never rest, But seek the weary beds of people sick.

Shakespeare, _Love's Labor's Lost_ (1594).

=Rosalu'ra=, the airy daughter of Nantolet, beloved by Belleur.--Beaumont and Fletcher, _The Wild-goose Chase_ (1652).

=Ros'amond= (_The Fair_), Jane Clifford, daughter of Walter, Lord Clifford. The lady was loved, not wisely, but too well, by Henry II., who kept her for concealment in a labyrinth at Woodstock. Queen Eleanor compelled the frail fair one to swallow poison (1777).

She was the fayre daughter of Walter, Lord Clifford.... Henry made for her a house of wonderfull working, so that no man or woman might come to her. This house was named "Labyrinthus," and was wrought like unto a knot, in a garden called a maze. But the queen came to her by a clue of thredde, and so dealt with her that she lived not long after. She was buried at G.o.dstow, in a house of nunnes, with these verses upon her tombe:

Hic jacet in tumba Rosa mundi, non Rosa munda; Non redolet, sed olet, quae redolere solet.

_Here Rose the graced, not Rose the chaste, reposes; The smell that rises is no smell of roses._

? The subject has been a great favorite with poets. We have in English the following tragedies:--_The Complaint of Rosamond_, by S. Daniel (before 1619); _Henry II.... with the Death of Rosamond_, either Bancroft or Mountford (1693); _Rosamond_, by Addison (1706); _Henry and Rosamond_, by Hawkins (1749); _Fair Rosamond_, by Tennyson (1879). In Italian, _Rosmonda_, by Rucellai (1525). In Spanish, _Rosmunda_, by Gil y Zarate (1840). We have also _Rosamond_, an opera, by Dr. Arne (1733); and _Rosamonde_, a poem in French, by C. Briffaut (1813). Sir Walter Scott has introduced the beautiful soiled dove in two of his novels--_The Talisman_ and _Woodstock_.

? Dryden says her name was _Jane_:

Jane Clifford was her name, as books aver: "Fair Rosamond" was but her _nom de guerre_.

We rede that in Englande was a king that had a concubyne whose name was Rose, and for hir greate bewtye he cleped hir Rose a mounde (Rosa mundi), that is to say, Rose of the world, for him thought that she pa.s.sed al wymen in bewtye.--R. Pynson (1493), subsequently printed by Wynken de Worde in 1496.

The _Rosemonde_ of Alfieri is quite another person. (See ROSEMOND.)

=Rosa'na=, daughter of the Armenian queen who helped St. George to quench the seven lamps of the knight of the Black Castle.--R. Johnson, _The Seven Champions of Christendom_, ii. 8, 9 (1617).

=Roscius= (_Quintus_), the greatest of Roman actors (died B.C. 62).

What scene of death hath Roscius now to act?

Shakespeare, 3 _Henry VI._ act v. sc. 6 (1592).

_Roscius_ (_The British_), Thomas Betterton (1635-1710), and David Garrick (1716-1779).

? The earl of Southampton says that Richard Burbage "is famous as our English Roscius" (1566-1619).

_Roscius_ (_The Irish_), Spranger Barry, "The Silver Tongued"

(1719-1777).

_Roscius_ (_The Young_), William Henry West Betty, who, in 1803, made his _debut_ in London. He was about 12 years of age, and in fifty-six nights realized 34,000. He died, aged 84, in 1874.

=Roscius of France= (_The_), Michel Boyron or Baron (1653-1729).

=Roscrana=, daughter of Cormac, king of Ireland (grandfather of that Cormac murdered by Cairbar). Roscra'na is called "the blue-eyed and white-handed maid," and was "like a spirit of heaven, half folded in the skirt of a cloud." Subsequently she was the wife of Fingal, king of Morven, and mother of Ossian, "king of bards."--Ossian, _Temora_, vi.

? Cormac, the father of Roscrana, was great-grandfather of that Cormac who was reigning when Swaran made his invasion. The line ran thus: (1) Cormac I., (2) Cairbre, his son, (3) Artho, his son, (4) Cormac II., father-in-law of Fingal.

=Rose=, "the gardener's daughter," a story of happy first love, told in later years by an old man who had, in his younger days, trifled with the pa.s.sion of love; but, like St. Augustin, was always "loving to love"

(_amans amare_), and was at length heart-smitten with Rose, whom he married. (See ALICE.)--Tennyson, _The Gardener's Daughter_.

_Rose._ Sir John Mandeville says that a Jewish maid of Bethlehem (whom Southey names Zillah) was beloved by one Ham'uel, a brutish sot. Zillah rejected his suit, and Hamuel, in revenge, accused the maiden of offences for which she was condemned to be burned alive. When brought to the stake, the flames burnt Hamuel to a cinder, but did no harm to Zillah. There she stood, in a garden of roses, for the brands which had been kindled became red roses, and those which had not caught fire became white ones. These are the first roses that ever bloomed on earth since the loss of paradise.

As the fyre began to brenne about hire, she made her preyeres to oure Lord ... and anon was the fayer quenched and oute, and brondes that weren brennynge becomen white roseres ... and theise werein the first roseres that ever ony man saughe.--Sir John Maundeville, _Voiage and Traivaile_.

_Rose._ According to Mussulman tradition, the rose is thus accounted for: When Mahomet took his journey to heaven, the sweat which fell on the earth from the prophet's forehead produced _White_ roses, and that which fell from Al Borak' (the animal he rode) produced _yellow_ ones.

_Rose._