Once I spoke the language of the flowers...

Red roses signify love and respect, unity, and romantic and passionate love.

The early Greeks (and later, the Romans with their mythological counterparts) inexorably linked the rose to love, beauty, purity and passion. According to the poet Anacreon, seafoam dripping from the body of Aphrodite as she is born turns into white roses, thus representing her purity and innocence. Later, when she is trying to help her wounded lover, Adonis, Aphrodite sheds a few drops of blood onto a white rose and changes it to red; thus representing her desire and passion.

Since the earliest times, the rose has been an emblem of silence. In Greek Mythology, Eros presents a rose to the god of silence. In a Celtic folk legend, a wandering, screaming spirit was silenced by presenting the spirit with a wild rose every new moon.

If a maiden had more than one lover, it is believed in one mythology, she should take rose leaves and write the names of her lovers upon them before casting them into the wind. The last leaf to reach the ground would bear the name of the lover whom she should marry.  It is also said that rose leaves thrown into a burning flame are said to give good luck.