his is a story
about a rose. Only some will understand that it is
about a rose and not about a little prince. Some
will be looking in the other direction and they won't see the rose at all, or at least,
not very well because she is hidden by a prince.
As soon as the rose was born she could see that she was very beautiful. Actually, she
couldn't see herself at all but the little prince said," Oh, how beautiful you
are!" so she knew she must be. Roses have always been told they were beautiful by
princes.
At the same time, the rose admired the prince. He looked as though
he might be a nice person to get to know, someone she could share her thoughts and ideas
with. There was a problem though. The rose knew she did not have the same freedom and
power as the prince. She was rooted in the ground, held there at the mercy of the wind,
the weather and of princes. The little prince was free to move about - in fact, he was the
ruler of the whole planet.
Because the little prince was stronger than she was, and might pull
her up and discard her the way he did with the baobabs that he said threatened his planet,
the rose knew she would have to be more than beautiful to survive. 
A rose knows well that beauty is ephemeral. So she made the prince
think she was very special, maybe even magic. She told him she was born at the same moment
as the sun. Roses who have no power have to make their power by enchantments. When she saw
that the prince was moved by her words, she asked him to get her some breakfast. She
thought that if she could have him attend to her wants he might forget his strength and
power and maybe, this
way, they could be equals. So she began to torment him
with her vanity. She boasted of the strength of her four little thorns. She asked the
prince to get her a screen because she had a horror of draughts. She asked that a glass
globe be placed over her at night. She lied to the prince and when he caught her at it,
she began to cough so that he would feel sorry for her. She told him she was unique in the
world so he would know she was very special.
The little prince began to feel that the rose was a very complex creature.
The prince was right - roses are very complex and often very devious. They use all the
charms they have because they think they must in order to survive. This sometimes creates
a lot of problems.
The prince began to be troubled over his relationship with the rose. He had good will
toward her and he loved her but he came to doubt her. He had taken seriously her words
which were without importance and they made him very unhappy. He thought that maybe he
ought to have judged her by her looks and not by her words. She had cast her fragrance and
her radiance over him but maybe he should not have listened to a flower.
As the prince was so unhappy, he decided to leave his planet. When
he said good-bye to the rose, they were both very sad. She told him that she loved him and
asked for his forgiveness. He was bewildered by this. She sent him away quickly because in
her pride, she didn't want him to see her crying.
The prince traveled to many planets, meeting different men who
engaged in different matters of importance to them. For the little prince, his own
happiness was the greatest matter of importance to him. When he came to the planet Earth,
he found a garden full of roses. He realized his rose was not unique and he was so
overcome at loving a common garden rose that he began to cry because he was so sorry for
himself.
Then he
met a fox who gave him some very bad advice about love and roses. The fox knew that when
you love someone you are very happy and excited when you are waiting for your loved one.
He also told the prince, "It is only with the heart that one can see rightly - what
is essential is invisible to the eye." He told him that it was the time he had wasted
for his rose that made the rose so important and how if you have tamed someone, you are
responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. The fox might have known some things about
love but he didn't know much about roses. The little prince thought that now he knew all
about love and all about roses.
In Which the
Rose Stays
ow the rose sat and
waited a long time on the far off planet for the prince to come back. On that planet, if
you sit and wait for something or someone, a day lasts a hundred years, so before very
many minutes had gone by, the rose grew very tired of waiting. The rose said to herself,
"As long as I'm here waiting, I should do something." So she did. The first
thing she did was to send out little shoots from her main stem. These shoots anchored
themselves to the ground and began to grow into roses just like her. The rose was
delighted. Now there were more roses for her to talk to. All the roses began to talk to
each other - some roses had more baby roses grow from them until there were many, many
roses on the planet.
At the same time, baobabs began to spring up on the planet, too. You
remember how the prince had pulled up the baobabs every day because he said that if he
didn't they would soon spread over the whole planet and bore through it with their roots.
"One must destroy it as soon as one recognizes it," the prince had said. The
baobabs that were now growing didn't spread over the whole planet. There were a lot of
them but there were a lot of roses too and when the baobabs and the roses spoke together
they found they could get along quite well even if the baobabs didn't understand the roses
at all. That was funny because the roses understood the baobabs just fine.
The first thing that the roses and the baobabs were
concerned with was making their planet into a good place to live. They learned all they
could about gardening so that the soil would be good for them and for the other plants
that would grow. The roses really liked their gardening. They felt as though they were
very close to nature, as though they were connected to the soil by some mysterious bond.
Of course, they were, because they were plants and their roots went deep into the soil but
they were more than plants. Some of the roses wanted to do other things besides gardening
and looking after the young roses. How the baobabs laughed when they heard that.
"Roses can only do certain things," they said. "They can look after young
roses and grow things and keep everything tidy. It has always been said that is what roses
do. It was even written in the first book so it must be true."
The rose-who-was-the-first rose said that she thought she would like
to learn Latin. The prince had left
his Latin school books behind when he left and she thought it might be
interesting to know what they said. "Oh no," the baobabs cautioned, "It is
said that it is impossible for roses to learn Latin. Their brains are too small, smaller
than a prince's brain and smaller than a baobab's brain. Besides it is said that if they
try to learn too much from books it will damage their internal organs and they will no
longer be able to make baby roses." With that the rose-who-was-the-first rose opened
a Latin book, studied it all day, then put forth a new shoot full of pink and white
striped roses and said,
"
". The baobabs said, "What did you say?" Baobabs
never 
learned Latin
because they watched television when they finished their gardening and there was never
anything in Latin on television. The rose-who-was-the-first rose said,"Virgil said
those words first but I have changed his meaning to suit me. I say that it means roses can
do anything they set their minds to."
"That's just it," grumbled the baobabs, "roses are always changing the
meanings of words nowadays to suit themselves. Meanings have been determined by baobabs
and princes and not by roses. Roses should look after the young ones and do the
gardening." The rose-who-was-the-first rose laughed and said, "Yes, that's
right. We are changing the meanings of words because sometimes we need new meanings for
old words that tell us we nave no power and no rights. We will make a list of these new
words and their meanings and we'll call it 
or the O.E.D. for short. I think it would be best if we put
these words into a database so we will need a computer."
In
Which Roses Can Do Anything
hen the prince
left on his long journey to find himself he hadn't left any money to look after the rose
in case she needed anything. But all the roses were doing just fine without his money.
They had found resources in themselves and had managed with their gardening to look after
themselves. Now that their immediate needs were taken care of, the rose-who-was-the-first
rose said, "Let's learn about computers." And so they took the money they had
made from gardening and bought a computer. When the baobabs heard what the roses had done
they were horrified! "Roses can't learn about computers. Only princes and some
baobabs can. Computers need a very special language to make them work and this requires
knowledge that roses can never, never have." The rose-who-was-the-first rose replied,
"We told you we are making new words so that everyone can understand things that only
some understood before. We will share our knowledge with you." Then the baobabs asked
what the roses would do with a computer and why they had bought one. The roses said,
"We want to learn about computers and have some fun."
The baobabs could understand about having fun. Didn't they watch
television every night when their gardening was done while the roses read their Latin
books and talked about new meanings for words and other boring stuff? "Oh boy!",
they cried, "now we can play some great games. Have you got `Interplanetary
shoot-em-ups'?". But the roses had no games. Roses don't understand why anyone would
want to shoot at things and zap objects off the screen.
The roses began to learn how to do
many things with their computer. They made a database and put their new words and meanings
from their O.E.D. list in it. Some of the gardening roses collected the information they
had learned about gardening and entered that in their gardening database. The
writing roses learned word processing so they could write their stories electronically.
The artistic roses learned to make graphics so that the writing roses could have pictures
to go with their stories. The musical roses composed computer music that made beautiful
sounds all over the planet. The baobabs began to come around and watch the roses playing
with their computer. "Is it really fun?", they asked. "Oh, yes," the
roses replied, "would you like to learn how it works?" Some of the 
baobabs said,"Nah, it
can't be much fun or very important if roses do it, so we don't want to know about
computers." But some of the younger baobabs said, "Computers are tools for
everyone - not just princes or roses. We'd like you to show us how to use your
computer." So the roses did. And the young baobabs learned to do all the things the
roses did. Some of the baobabs and roses even played games sometimes and they all had fun.
Then the roses got a modem for the computer so that they could
connect with other computers on other planets and share information. It was through the
modem that the roses heard the news about the little prince.
In Which
the Rose Leaves
t seemed to the
rose-who-was-the-first rose as though the prince had been gone only a few
days but it really was
many years. On that planet a hundred years is like a day if you are busy and learning
things. Now the rose-who-was- the-first rose was very, very old and very happy. She wasn't
beautiful on the outside any longer but, what was more important, she was beautiful
inside. One day she was sharing information, by using the modem, with a snake who lived on
the far-off planet of Earth. The snake told her that the little prince was coming back to his planet soon
and wanted to see his rose. He was bringing a sheep in a box with him, too. The snake also
told her that on the planet Earth many roses were learning all about other roses and
perhaps she would like to come and visit with them and learn with them.
"Ah," thought the rose-who-was-the-first rose, "that
would be wonderful. I woul
d love to learn and share my knowledge with the other roses of Earth. The
prince will have many, many roses to greet him when he returns so he won't even notice
that I am not here. And the sheep will love it here too. It can stand in the shade of the
baobabs when the sun is very hot."
When the other roses heard that the rose-who-was-the-first rose was
going away they said, "You can't leave us. You are unique. What will we do without
you.?" The rose replied, "I am not unique - I am not the only one of a kind. I
was only the first one. All of you are like me but you are each unique in your own ways
and very, very special. Remember that you can do anything you set your minds to. When the
little prince comes you must first ensure the safety of the baobabs. Explain to the prince
how he does not have to kill something just because he does not understand it. Show him
too that roses are like princes in many ways but not in all. Roses have feelings and
abilities just like princes and baobabs. Be very gentle with him though. There is much
that princes have to learn.
In Which the Prince Leaves