Bed of roses

Bed of roses is an English expression that represents a carefree life. This idiomatic expression is still popular.

In the thirteenth-century work Le Roman de la Rose (called "The French Iliad" in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable), a Lover recounts his dream of touring a garden and finding a beautiful bed of roses by the Fountain of Love.

The expression is also used by later poets. Here is a line in Christopher Marlowe's poem The Passionate Shepherd to His Love. This was published posthumously in 1599; Marlowe died in 1593, stabbed to death

And I will make thee beds of roses

And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;