sub rosa
tamelyn
Pale hands float like lilies on the dark pond of a veil. One wide wild eye, staring fixedly at what we cannot see. Behind the veil, delicate and impenetrable, a visage both captivating and captivated guards unsharable secrets.
Secrets are seductive. We want to learn them, we want to keep them, we want to reveal them, we want to revel in them. We want to be known as somebody who knows secrets. Even the word itself, with those sexy sibilant consonants, is titillating. The tease of secrets is such that we often forget another truth; secrets can be disquieting.
In ancient Roman villas the ceilings of the more intimate dining rooms were decorated with roses. What took place in those rooms…the romantic trysts, the political conspiracies, the secrets revealed, the indiscretions committed under the influence of too much wine…were private. So came the aphorism sub vino sub rosa est. “What is said under wine is under the rose.”
Here are secrets under the rose. We want to know them. We never will.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, greg fallis and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
