Note 219 — Chapter X

“To account for the allegorical passion entertained by the nightingale for the rose, which is the subject of so much beautiful imagery in Persian poetry, we must consider,” says Sir William Ouseley, “that the plaintive voice of that sweet bird is first heard at the same season of the year in which the rose begins to blow. By a natural association of ideas they are therefore connected as the constant and inseparable attendants of the spring. It is probable, too, that the nightingale’s favourite retreat may be the rose-garden, and the leaves of that flower occasionally its food; but it is certain that he is delighted with its odour and sometimes indulges the fragrant luxury (if I may be allowed the expression) to such excess as to fall from the branch intoxicated and helpless to the ground.”—Persian Miscellanies, p. 91.