They looked until nightfall. Exhausted they found lodgings and rested, but Mary’s sickness had increased with her sorrow and concern. In her feverish sleep, she heard the song of a night bird and it was woven in her dreams with an Arab tale that she had often told Jesus. It was the tale of a Nightingale that loved a white rose and sang the most beautiful songs to it, but only from afar, for fear of its thorns. One night, beneath the swollen moon, having drunk her fill of song and emboldened by love, the Nightingale resolved to embrace the rose and clasping it to her breast, was pierced through by a thorn. She sang the most beautiful song she had ever sung, pressing the thorn closer and closer to her heart, a song of sacrifice and true love found, until having stained the rose with her own heart’s blood, she died.
And so that rose, in mourning, forever after bloomed red.
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