Certainly no man learneth how in time of néed to lye vpon a bed of Roses, but rather how he may strengthen him self against torments, lest if the case so requireth he should vt ter any thing contrary to his faith or promise. For otherwise we néed not to prepare and seeke to frée our selues from the thing whereunto we should willigly of our owne mindes hasten, as vnto that that is our owne conseruation. What time herbs & wedes, & such thing & enemies, there is nothing more conuenient then not to make any account of death, wherin eche man douteth to finde some terrible matter whiche offendeth the mindes and quaileth the courages of those who naturally are indued with a self looue. Marlowe was certainly not the first English writer to use the phrase 'bed of roses.' From John Heywood, ' A Rose and a Nettill,' in An Hundred Epigrammes (1550): Instances of 'bed of roses' in sixteenth-century English texts This metaphor first recorded in 1635, is often used in a negative context, as in the example.Īs the question poster notes, metaphorical (or at least figurative/symbolic) use of 'bed of roses' goes back considerably farther than 1635. Christine Ammer, The American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms, second edition (2013) has this entry for 'bed of roses':īed of roses A comfortable or luxurious position, as in Taking care of these older patients is no bed of roses.

Expressions similar sea of roses