Annotation:Under the Rose (2)

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UNDER THE ROSE [2]. English, Country Dance Tune and Jig (6/8 time). B Flat Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. There was a song, "The Grand Conversation of Napoleon Under the Rose," although Napoléon Bonaparte (1769-1821) was only a year old when Longman & Co's volume was published. In fact, the term 'under the rose', or in Latin, sub rosa, had long been used to meant that a secret was to be kept, from the periodical The Theatere (August 1, 1881)

The rose is a flower that, when in old days it was blessed by the Pope, was hung up on the arch of the confessional, as a type that everything connected with this sacrament was sacred. And so the story of the rose went on. Architacts, in old days, carved a rose in the centre of the wooden ceiling of the refectory, as an emblem of the preservation of sacred secrets. Anything that was spoken sub rosâ or under the rose, was on that account strictly private.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Longman & Co. (Twenty Four Country Dances for the Year 1770), 1770; p. 34. Longman, Lukey & Broderip (Bride's Favourite Collection of 200 Select Country Dances, Cotillons), 1776; p. 34.

Recorded sources:

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