It's odd that we celebrate love with perishable tokens.Valentine's Day approaches, which means it's the season for florists to work themselves into a tizzy—and not just in the frantic provision of product for the holiday. There is also much huffing and griping at those who make unkind comments about flowers. The Society of American Florists complains on its Web site about "Negative or misleading references about flowers and florists," and promises to confront "offenders" that publish Valentine's Day stories encouraging consumers "to purchase a product rather than flowers."
The florists' lobby also is piqued at anyone who notices that the cost of certain flowers rises as the 14th approaches, denouncing an article in this month's Better Homes and Gardens for making "negative statements about the price of Valentine's Day roses." Yet the florists' highest dudgeon is reserved for those who suggest buying products other than flowers for one's beloved. When technology correspondent Natali Del Conte was on CBS's "Early Show" Monday talking about new computer goodies, she made the mistake of saying: "Chocolates and flowers are nice, but they go away. These [techno-gadgets] last longer." The florists' association fired off a demand that she "refrain from making negative references to flowers in future stories."
Don't even get them started on the cupidity of competitors. Successories, a company famous for mawkish motivational posters, sent out an email this month touting the value of "art that will last a lifetime," whereas "flowers only last a week." The Society of American Florists flew into action, telling Successories that "more sharply focused, creative, successful advertisements" are those that don't belittle blossoms. When the Danbury Mint said in a Valentine's Day catalog that its bric-a-brac is "more precious than a dozen roses," which "fade quickly," the Mint got an SAF missive, too.
In other words, the florists are mighty touchy on the subject of decay. They are sensitive to suggestions that ephemerality is a fault with flowers (rather than the essence of their charm). They must hate Plato, since he disdained sensual love with an unkind floral metaphor, dismissing as vulgar and dishonorable those attractions based on "the bloom of youth." Those in the bouquet business must also have a bone to pick with St. Peter, who likens the transient and worthless glory of man to a flower—it withereth and falleth away. Particularly objectionable would be the English poet Robert Herrick, who wept that daffodils "haste away so soon," and that the "same flower that smiles to-day/To-morrow will be dying."
And yet, the florists and their high anxieties aside, one thing is true: It is odd that we are in the habit of celebrating love with such perishable tokens. Do we mean to declare that our affections are as fleeting as roses, to be gathered while ye may? Or could we use a metaphor d'amour that suggests rather more staying power, something that eschews flash and show—perhaps, instead of the flower, the leaf?
In the incubators of our modern notions of love and romance—the late-medieval courts of France and England—the question was vigorously argued: Is love a passing fancy or a durable good? "Playful debates over the superiority of either the leaf or the flower were a great fad in the late 14th century," says Michael Hanly, who teaches medieval literature at Washington State University. The fashion got going in earnest with a quartet of poems by Eustache Deschamps, a French contemporary of Chaucer, debating the comparative virtues of flowers and leaves. One of the poems made the case for the leaf as a symbol of perseverance and enduring love, but the others championed the flirty delights of the daisy.
But the greatest elaboration of the debate can be seen in John Dryden's rendering of a 15th-century poem, "The Floure and the Leafe." Dryden's "The Flower and the Leaf" tells of two fairy courts that gamboled in a verdant field on May Day. One group of ladies and knights wears garlands of flowers; and they pay homage to the bright new daisies. The other group has woodbine on their brows, crowns of leaves and chaplets of oak. Gathered in the shade and shelter of a spreading laurel, the leafy crowd "found retreat" and "shunn'd the scorching heat." But the followers of Flora soon find themselves wilting in the noonday sun. When a sudden storm appears, they're blasted by the rain and hail. The flower, and the sort of love it represents, is "A short-lived good, and an uncertain grace," Dryden writes. "This way and that the feeble stem is driven/Weak to sustain the storms and injuries of heaven." And what of the laurel-like love? "From winter winds it suffers no decay/For ever fresh and fair, and every month is May."
Our more modern poets have kept the debate alive. Cole Porter asked whether real love was made out of marble or out of clay, "a new Rolls [or just] a used Chevrolet." We still haven't decided what we think love is all about. We have our modern champions of the Order of the Flower—Christina Nehring and her passion-pushing book, "A Vindication of Love," come to mind. Arguably, Mark Sanford, when "hiking the Appalachian Trail," was embracing flower power. But the popular prejudice is for love that lasts (notwithstanding the odds).
So why don't we declare our faith in fidelity with gifts of ever-greenery? As appealing a notion as that may be, I shudder to think of the look on my wife's face if I should show up Sunday with a potted plant.
For his part, Dryden entertained the tender charms of those flowery things "for pleasure made/ [that] Shoot up with swift increase, and sudden are decay'd." But when asked "Whether the Leaf or Flower I would obey?" he says, "I chose the Leaf." Good for him. And a good thing, too, that he's beyond the reach of miffed missives from the Society of American Florists.
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