Damask rose

“ Damask, dam′ask, n. figured stuff, originally of silk, now of linen, cotton, or wool, the figure being woven, not printed.—v.t. to flower or variegate, as cloth.—adj. of a red colour, like that of a damask rose.—v.t. Damaskeen′, to decorate metal (esp. steel) by inlaying or encrusting on it patterns like damask in other metals: to ornament with flowery patterns, to damask.—ns. Damaskeen′ing, Damasceen′ing, the watered or striated structure seen in certain sword-blades and other weapons: the ornamental incrustation with gold and silver of steel and iron surfaces ”

“ Both the Damask and the Provence roses are extensively cultivated in France and England for the purpose of making rose-water.
The Damask is very hardy, vigorous of growth, and abundant in bloom. Its shoots are full of spines, and its leaves of a light green. Its old original varieties are wholly eclipsed by those which the industry of the florist has produced from their seed. ”

“ Rosa Damascena.—This is a race of Damask roses endowed with the faculty of blooming in the autumn. The old roses known as the Monthly (not the China roses so called) and the Four Seasons are the parents of the group, though not without some infusion of foreign blood. The Damask Perpetuals are hardy, and remarkable for fragrance. They demand rich culture, even more than most other roses; and the best of them with neglect and low diet will bloom but once in the year, and that indifferently. ”

“ Although her figure might display a greater amplitude of proportions than of yore, yet was her hair still black and glossy, her large dark eyes still as coldly bright as ever they had been, while if the fine bloom on her cheeks owed nothing of its tints to the lily, there are many people who prefer the rich damask of the rose even in the matter of complexion. ”

“ One peculiar feature they nearly all possess,—a reluctance to root when layered: consequently, Perpetual Damask roses, on their own roots, will always be scarce. When it is possible to procure them, they will be found to flourish much better on dry, poor soils than when budded, as at present. ”

“ Wild as that, the nighest woodland of a deserted home in England, but without its sweet sadness, is the sumptuous garden of Damascus. Forest trees, tall and stately enough if you could see their lofty crests, yet lead a tussling life of it below, with their branches struggling against strong numbers of bushes and wilful shrubs. The shade upon the earth is black as night. High, high above your head, and on every side all down to the ground, the thicket is hemmed in and choked up by the interlacing boughs that droop with the weight of roses, and load the slow air with their damask breath. ”

“ And still the throng filed by, a strange throng beneath the flickering light and shadow of the mashrubiyeh, slender young Turks or blonde Circassians in their Paris frocks, their eyes tormented or malicious, and here and there, like a green island of calm, some rotund matron grave and serene, her head encircled with an old fashioned turban of gauze, her stout flesh encased in heavy silks, bought at Damask so as not to enrich the Unbelievers at Lyons. ”

“ Farther below is Damascus itself—a maze of flat buildings, squat mosques, and minaret spires, all in gray-white, as if sprinkled with the powder of time, and now smudged with faint rose by the sinking sunlight. Eastward and southeastward stretches the great desert that leads to the sites of Babylon and Nineveh, to Bagdad, to Persia, to the beginnings of human history.
In Damascus, as I knew from intelligence officers of the Palestine army, were many friends of the British. Nearly all the population, in fact, were secretly anti-Turk and anti-German. ”

“ Damask, and silk, and velvet, and gilt ornaments in the style of France, were there in abundance, and had it not been for the arches overhead, and the stone walls and narrow windows around, the old hall might have passed for the saloon of some newly-enriched financier of Paris.
The young man sat at table alone—not that he was by any means fond of solitude, for on the contrary he would have fain filled his house with company—but for some reason or another, which he could not divine, he found the old country gentlemen in the neighborhood somewhat shy of his society. ”

“ Therewithal the damsel rose briskly and putting off her clothes, washed and donned sumptuous apparel and perfumed herself and went out to him, as she were a willow-wand or a bamboo-cane, followed by a black slave-girl, bearing the lute. When she came to the young man, she saluted him and sat down by his side. Then she took the lute from the slave-girl and tuning it, smote thereon in four-and-twenty modes, after which she returned to the first mode and sang the following verses:
Unto me the world’s whole gladness is thy nearness and thy sight ”

“ The Damaske Prouince Rose, is not onely for sent nearest of all other Roses vnto the Damaske, but in the operation of solubility also. The red Rose hath many Physicall vses much more then any other, seruing for many sorts of compositions, both cordiall and cooling, both binding and loosing. The white Rose is much vsed for the cooling of heate in the eyes: diuers doe make an excellent yellow colour of the iuyce of white Roses, wherein some Allome is dissolued, to paint or colour flowers or pictures, or any other such things. There is little vse of any other sort of Roses ”

“ Corde preces, Damasus melior consurgere posset,
Quem non lucis amor, tenuit mage cura laboris."
"Behold! a way down has been constructed, and the darkness dispelled; you see the monuments of Cornelius, and his sacred tomb. This work the zeal of Damasus has accomplished, sick as he is, in order that the approach might be better, and the aid of the saint might be made convenient for the people; and that, if you will pour forth your prayers from a pure heart, Damasus may rise up better in health, though it has not been love of life, but care for work, that has kept him (here below) ." [211] ”

“ Here are silk stuffs from Damascus and Aleppo; cambric from the district of Nablus, near the well of Jacob; gold and silver threads from Mount Lebanon; keffie, the Bedouin handkerchiefs, from Mecca, and fabrics of delicate device from Damascus blend their charm with the Anatolian carpets of gorgeous tissue. The fruits of Hamas hang beyond—dried fruits and blades from Celo Syria—pistacchios from Aleppo, and over them strange Persian rugs.
“The eye feasts upon splendor. The wares are often clumsy, inconvenient, and unshapely. The coarsest linen is embroidered with the finest gold. ”

“ Let her breathe in her fragrance of the far times when millions in a strange and busy age now forgotten thronged rose-garlanded to the temples; when, bearing roses, they gathered to wild worship at the Feast of the New Moon, under shady groves or in picturesque high places among the ancient rocks. Rose-breathing, rose-perfumed, amid sweetest music and black Assyrian eyes, in the gliding dance under thousands of brazen serpent lamps, or far in dusky fragrant forests, they adored the Rose Queen—the very visible spirit and incarnation of nature in her loveliest form. ”

“ Yes, the rivers of Damascus still run and revel within and without the walls, of which the steward of Sheikh Abraham was a citizen. They have encompassed them with gardens, and filled them with fountains. They gleam amid their groves of fruit, wind through their vivid meads, sparkle-among perpetual flowers, gush from the walls, bubble in the courtyards, dance and carol in the streets: everywhere their joyous voices, everywhere their glancing forms, filling the whole world around with freshness, and brilliancy, and fragrance, and life. ”

“ Damascus, under the rule of the Ommeyades, presented a picture of licentiousness and luxury unequalled, before or since, by that or any other community of the Moslem world. The importance of its commerce, the opulence of its citizens, the beauty of its suburbs, the sanctity of its traditions, and the prestige of its name gained for the most venerable city of antiquity the admiration and the reverence of every traveller. Its temples were embellished with all the magnificent creations of Oriental art. Its palaces were encrusted with porphyry, verde-antique, lapis lazuli, and alabaster. ”

“ There were the mountains, the desert, and the forest of gardens; the last intermingled with walls, and domes, and minarets, and untold roofs, and the tops of trees, and the glittering sheen of running water, all forming a scene of beauty unparalleled and indescribable. Damascus, with its gardens, is a city in a grove; and conveys the idea of art seated in the lap of nature, — an island of architecture in the midst of a sea of verdure. A little after 7 P.M., we encamped, for the night, by the village of Damur, on the right bank of the Barada. ”

“ Silk and Cotton Damask; ground, light green; design, a Saracenic pattern formed by lines in long lozenges. South of Spain, 14th century. 93⁄4 inches by 7 inches.
Much like in tint and style of pattern the fine specimen at No. 1240. In both the Moslem’s sacred colour of green may be noticed, and the two pieces may have been woven at Granada.
1243.
Damask, silk and linen; ground, crimson and yellow stripes; design, on the crimson stripes, circles enclosing a lion rampant, and six-petaled flowers, in yellow ”

“ You look down on a world of foliage, and fruit, and blossoms, whose hue, by contrast with the barren mountains and the yellow rim of the desert which incloses it, seems brighter than all other gardens in the world. Through its centre, following the course of the river, lies Damascus; a line of white walls, topped with domes and towers and tall minarets, winding away for miles through the green sea. Nothing less than a city of palaces, whose walls are marble and whose doors are ivory and pearl, could keep up the enchantment of that distant view. ”

“ And yet Damascus is one of the wonders of the world, unrivalled in what is peculiarly its own, admitting no comparison with any existing city, revelling in a beauty and a splendor belonging to Islamism more than Christianity, characterizing the age of the Caliphs rather than of the Crystal Palace. ”

“ Her fame extended throughout the East, and obscured the glory of ancient Damascus. The faithful came from the most remote regions of Asia to banks of the Guadalquivir to prostrate themselves in the marvelous Mihrab of her mosque, in the light of the thousand bronze lamps cast from the bells of the cathedrals of Spain. Hither flocked artists, savants, poets from every part of the Mahometan world to her flourishing schools, immense libraries, and the magnificent courts of her caliphs. Riches and beauty flowed in, attracted by the fame of her splendor. ”

“ Environs of Damascus.
The Environs of Damascus.
The small rides and excursions round Damascus are innumerable and beautiful; they lead through garden and orchard with bubbling water, under the shady fig and vine, pomegranate and walnut. You emerge on the soft yellow sand, and you throw off your superfluous strength, by galloping as hard as you will. There is no one to check your spirits; the breath of the desert is liberty. There is Mizzeh, a village placed exactly on the borders of the green and yellow; one side looks into trees and verdure, and the other side in the bare sand. ”

“ The street life of Damascus is that panorama of the mean and the picturesque, the sordid and the rich, of silk and rags, of many costumes and all colors, which so astonishes the Oriental traveller at first, but to which he speedily becomes so accustomed that it passes almost unnoticed. The majority of the women are veiled, but not so scrupulously as those of Cairo. Yet the more we see of the women of the East the more convinced we are that they are exceedingly good-hearted; it is out of consideration for the feelings of the persons they meet in the street that they go veiled. ”

“ The moon had risen over that unrivalled landscape; the white minarets sparkled in its beam, and the vast hoods of the cupolaed mosques were suffused with its radiancy or reposed in dark shadow, almost as black as the cypress groves out of which they rose. In the extreme distance, beyond the fertile plain, was the desert, bright as the line of the sea, while otherwise around him extended the chains of Lebanon and of the North. ”

“ Products, Manufactures, &c.—Damascus occupies an important commercial position, being the market for the whole of the desert; it also is of great importance religiously, as being the starting-point for the Hajj pilgrimage from Syria to Mecca, which leaves on the 15th of the lunar month of Shawwal each year. This of course brings much trade to the city. Its chief manufactures are silk work, cloths and cloaks, gold and silver ornaments, &c., brass and copper work, furniture and ornamental woodwork. The bazaars of Damascus are among the most famous of their kind. ”

“ In former times it was a favourite residence of the Moors and Arabs, who called it the New Damascus. There has been hard fighting there during the present war, and it has thrice changed masters. It is surrounded by luxuriant gardens and groves of orange-trees, whose fruit is said to be the finest in the world. ”

“ THE HOUSE OF RIMMON
A DRAMA IN FOUR ACTS DRAMATIS PERSONÆ Soldiers, Servants, Citizens, etc., etc.
Scene: Damascus and the Mountains of Samaria.
Time: 850 B. C.
ACT I Scene I Night, in the garden of Naaman at Damascus. At the left the palace, with softly gleaming lights and music coming from the open latticed windows. The garden is full of oleanders, roses, pomegranates, abundance of crimson flowers; the air is heavy with their fragrance: a fountain at the right is plashing gently: behind it is an arbour covered with vines. ”