There once was a young woman named Rose who lived among the flowered meadows of Athens. In the neighboring town lived a young man named Haven.
About once a week Haven came to the meadows to pick a bundle of flowers for his mother. One day when he was picking flowers in the meadow, Rose was there too. From the first time Rose had seen Haven, she had fallen in love with him. He did not like Rose very much, for she wasn't as pretty as the other girls that he knew.
Rose tried with all her might to win Haven's affection. Haven pretended to like her, which Rose believed he truly did.
It eventually came to Rose's attention that Haven was playing a trick on her. She was heartbroken and cried for days on end. When the goddess Aphrodite saw what had happened to Rose, she was quite angry. Aphrodite brought a flower to Rose to try and calm her down while she went and talked to Haven. The flower was white and quite fragrant. Rose liked the flower but was still heartbroken.
While Aphrodite went to talk to Haven, Rose went home and got her father's sword. While holding the flower that Aphrodite had given her, Rose plunged the sword through her heart, because she felt that she could not live without Haven's love.
When Aphrodite returned with Haven, for he was going to apologize, they found Rose dead on the floor. Lying next to her was the flower, in a pool of blood. The petals on the flower soaked up the blood and gave it a deep, rich, red color. Aphrodite then told Haven that the flower would now be known as "rose", and so that everyone would know how much one's love means to another. Haven was ashamed of himself and never loved another for the rest of his life.
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