Roses are red

:"Violets are blue" redirects here. For the James Patterson novel, click here.""Roses are red" can refer to a specific poem, or a class of doggerel poems inspired by that poem. The poem is:

:Roses are red,:Violets are blue,:Sugar is sweet;:And so are you

The origins of the poem may be traced to the following lines written in 1590 by Sir Edmund Spenser from his epic "The Faerie Queene" (Book Three, Canto 6, Stanza 6) [ [http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/fq/fq32.htm "The Faerie Queene", Cant. VI.] ] :

:It was upon a Sommers shynie day,:When Titan faire his beames did display,:In a fresh fountaine, farre from all mens vew,:She bath'd her brest, the boyling heat t'allay;:She bath'd with roses red, and violets blew,:And all the sweetest flowres, that in the forrest grew. In common English this reads::It was upon a summer's shiny day,:When Titan fair his beams did display,:In a fresh fountain, far from all mens' view,:She bathed her breast, the boiling heat to allay;:She bathed with roses red, and violets blue,:And all the sweetest flowers, that in the forest grew.

A nursery rhyme significantly closer to the modern cliché Valentine's Day poem can be found in "Gammer Gurton's Garland", a collection of English nursery rhymes. (1783)

:Roses are red, diddle, diddle:Lavender's blue:If you will have me, diddle, diddle:I will have you.

Victor Hugo was likely familiar with Spenser, but may not have known the English nursery rhyme when, in 1862, he published the novel, Les Miserables. Hugo was a poet as well as a novelist, and within the text of the novel are many songs. One sung by the character, Fantine contains this refrain, in the 1862 English translation:

:We will buy very pretty things:A-walking through the faubourgs.:Violets are blue, roses are red,:Violets are blue, I love my loves.

The last two lines in the original French are:

:Les bleuets sont bleus, les roses sont roses,:Les bleuets sont bleus, j'aime mes amours.

("Les Misérables", Fantine, Book Seven, Chapter Six) [ [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17489/17489-h/17489-h.htm#Chapitre_VIg "Les misérables", Tome I by Victor Hugo] at Project Gutenberg]

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