The origin of the famous saying "A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose."
It seems that back in the days of the Roman empire, Nero and Cicero had
estates on facing slopes of some hills, and both were avid growers of
roses. Every year Nero's slope was covered in red roses, and Cicero's was
covered in yellow roses.
Of course, being the masters of their houses, Nero and Cicero didn't
actually work in the gardens. They had gardeners charged with seeing that
the roses were always up to the standards of the estate.
One winter, Nero's head gardener was planting the rose bulbs for the
next season. As he walked down the rows planting bulbs, he suddenly
realized that he had been stepping on the last row he had planted. He
didn't have enough bulbs to replace the ruined plants, so in the middle of
the night he sneaked across the valley to Cicero's estate and stole enough
bulbs to complete the planting on Nero's slope.
Well, fortunately for the gardener, he was called out of town around the
time when the rose buds were about to open. He therefore wasn't in the
reach of Nero's wrath when he noticed the one yellow line breaking up his
beautiful red field.
Nero sent a note to his gardener asking about this unusual chromatic
anomoly. It read: "Our roses arose. Is a row Cicero's?"
