In a palace in Greece lived Isis, daughter of King Herman, the most powerful ruler at the time. Everyone adored Isis, mostly because of her father’s status and her unique beauty. She had the fairest skin, her eyes were green as the tall grass that danced in the wind, and her hair shined like the golden sun itself. Although she was the most beautiful of the land and many foreign princes and wealthy men had tried to court her, she was not yet married. She dreamed of finding a perfect man that she would fall in love with, one that would correspond to her love. At last on a gloomy afternoon her dream came true when Prince Alecander arrived at the palace in hopes of wooing the princess he had heard was the loveliest of all the lands. They met at the palace’s garden where the scent of Isis’ most favored flowers, Roses, was pungent in the air. When their eyes met, it was love at first sight. They married that same week. However, trouble soon arose in the lives of the newly weds when Aphrodite, the goddess of love, took notice of the happy couple and fell in love with Alecander. Using her divine powers, she disguised herself as a human, making sure that her beauty exceeded that of Isis. She snuck into the palace at night and soundlessly made her way to the main bedroom where Alecander and his wife were sleeping. There, she placed a spell on Isis so that she would not wake up until sunrise. Then she awoke Alecander by softly singing in his ear until his eyes opened. Upon seeing her, instead of admiring her beauty and falling instantly in love with her, he became outraged that she was in his and his wife’s bedroom. “I will call the guards immediately and have you thrown out!” he threatened harshly. Hearing the angry tone in his voice, Aphrodite’s love for him turned to hate and the place in her heart that he occupied grew cold. In vengeance, she made the blood in his veins stop flowing and the heart in his chest stop beating. Then she took his body to the garden where she knew Isis and him had first met and left him there lying among the white roses. At sunrise, Isis awoke and when she didn’t find her husband lying next to her, she knew something was wrong. Instinct told her to alert the guards but her heart instructed her to go to the palace’s garden. There she found him laying on the ground, his lifeless eyes staring up at her and his hands as frigid as the first snow fall. She fell to her knees beside him as pain and grief pierced her heart and sobs wracked her body. “How can I continue living when the one that I lived for is dead?” She cried in despair. Abruptly her tears and her sobs seized. Very slowly she plucked a rose from the bush. With determination in her eyes she grabbed hold of the stem and slashed it across her wrist, the thorns ripping open her skin. The guards found the dead couple in the garden three hours later, Isis’ blood coating the ground. To their astonishment the roses around them had turned the color red, for the blood of Isis had seeped into the ground and into the roots of the bushes. From then on roses have sprouted red from the ground.