Appendix B: From The Letters of Two Lovers
APPENDIX B
The text known as The Letters of Two Lovers (Epistolae Duorum Amantium) contains the fragments of 113 letters preserved in a late fifteenthcentury manuscript between individuals, identified only as "the Woman" and "the Man," who represent themselves as an enthusiastic student and her teacher, both in love. The manuscript's first editor,
Ewald Könsgen, very cautiously suggested that the fragments might be remnants of the letters exchanged between Abelard and Heloise in the early days of their affair and fondly remembered by them both.1
The suggestion naturally focused attention on the fragments, and several scholars have supported it with arguments stressing the similarity of the situations and the fragments' use of what are taken to be characteristically Abelardian turns of phrase. The most notable and extensive set of arguments has been offered by Constant J. Mews, who confidently dubbed the fragments "the lost love letters of Heloise and Abelard" (1999). Others scholars have been decidedly more skeptical, however, pointing to the existence of other medieval letter collections that proceed from similar premises, to what are at least apparent inconsistencies between the circumstances described in The Letters of Two Lovers and Abelard's Calamities, to difficulties of preserving and transmitting such a collection, and to wide stylistic differences in the literary habits of the fragments and the accepted letters of Abelard and Heloise, differences that are unlikely to be accounted for by the passage of time alone.2 In the face of these counterarguments, it becomes very difficult to ascribe the fragments to Abelard and Heloise, though, no doubt, the debate will continue for some time.
1 Könsgen 1974. For Abelard and Heloise's recollections of their early correspondence, see pp. 11 and 62.
2 See, e.g., the very different arguments of Dronke 1976, 24–26; von Moos 2003; Ziolkowski 2004; Constable 2005; and Dronke and Orlandi 2005.
APPENDIX B
One conspicuous feature of the fragments calls for a brief explanatory comment here, their frequent elaboration of the standard formula of salutation, "To A, from B: greetings." Each element of the formula may be extended until the salutation comes to resemble a self-conscious artifact on its own. At times the salutation is virtually all that has been preserved; at other times it can be seen introducing a specific trope, verbal device, or set of bookish references that the body of the letter will develop. Hence, Letter 22 begins
To his jewel, fairer and brighter than the present day From him who is wrapped in deep shadow:
What else but that you glory in your natural radiance without cease? and goes on to expand the conceit into a small essay on sunlight, moonlight, and the passage of time; and Letter 45 begins
To her house of cedar, the ivory column on which the whole house rests:
The white of snow, the bright of moon, the light of sun, the height of stars, the delight of roses, the sight of lilies, the sweet of balsam, the might of earth, the respite of sky—and whatever else is sweet within their realm before turning its catalog of rhymes into a catalog of lovers from Terence and Ovid. Such a procedure—though not often carried out to this length—was not uncommon in medieval letters, either in genuine letters or in the numerous fictional letter collections composed as rhetorical exercises or as learned jeux d'ésprit, to which category The Letters of Two Lovers may well belong.
The selection of the fragments presented here follows the text and numbering of Könsgen's edition; ellipses [. . .] indicate omissions by the original manuscript's copyist.
1: The Woman to the Man To her heart's own love, scented sweeter than any spice From her who is his in body and heart:
As the flowers of your youth may fade, the bloom of happiness forever.
. . . Farewell, my life's deliverance.
FROM THE LETTERS OF TWO LOVERS
2: The Man to the Woman To the matchless joy and only solace of a weary mind From him whose life is death without you:
What more than himself, as he has strength in body and in soul?
. . . Farewell, my light, for whom I would gladly die.
5: The Woman to the Man To my joyful hope:
My faith and myself with every devotion, so long as I live.
May he who bestows all arts and gives the gift of human intelligence fill my breast with the art of philosophy that I may greet you in writing, my beloved, as I would wish.
Farewell, farewell, hope of my youth.
9: The Woman to the Man To a burning lamp, a city set on a hill:
May he fight to win and race to gain the prize.
. . . It is my deepest wish that by the exchange of letters you have proposed we may strengthen the warm friendship between us, until that happy day dawns when I will see your face—I have longed for it with all my prayers.
As the weary long for shade and the thirsty long for water, so I long to see you. . . . Nothing will ever be so difficult for my body or so dangerous for my soul that I would not pay its price out of devotion to you. . . .
Farewell in God, who is most well.
12: The Man to the Woman To one who is loved with passion and will be loved with greater passion
From one who is faithful beyond all others and truly is the only faithful one:
Whatever the rule of sincerest love requires.
There is no need, my sweetest, to show me in words the faith you show in your actions. If I should spend all my strength in your service, I would count it nothing, a paltry labor next to what you deserve. If every earthly good could be gathered together and placed in one heap for me to choose between that and your friendship, I would think it all worthless, out of the faith that I owe to you. . . . Yes, I am glad to have done that.
APPENDIX B
Farewell, my beauty, incomparably sweeter than every sweet thing. May you always live as happy as I wish you to be: for anything better, there is no need.
13: The Woman to the Man . . . My mind is always bound in gratitude to you by a duty freely chosen.
But since it could not send all the many greetings it wished, it now is silent:
I did not want to list only some and then seem to slight them all. I cannot think you find it hard for me to write so often, repeating the same things over and over again, and it is easy for me, since I love you as myself and do not fail to love you with all the strength of my heart. . . .
Farewell, you who are dearer than life. Know that my life is in you, my death in you.
17: The Man to the Woman To the bottomless vessel of his every sweetness From her most beloved:
Let me turn from the light of the sky and gaze without end at you alone.
As day was turning into night, I could no longer hold back from the duty I choose freely of sending you a greeting—but you dawdle and put it off.
Farewell, and know that without your welfare, no welcome and no life exist for me.
18: The Woman to the Man From an equal to an equal To a reddening rose under the spotless white of lilies:
Whatever lover gives to lover.
It is deep winter, yet my breast grows warm with the heat of love. What else should I say? I would write you many more words, but a few are enough for the wise man.
Farewell, my body and heart, and all that I love.
19: The Man to the Woman Yes, your words are few, but I have made them many by reading them over and over. I do not care how much you say but how giving is the heart from which it comes.
Farewell, my sweetest.
FROM THE LETTERS OF TWO LOVERS
20: The Man to the Woman Stars turn in the sky, the moon reddens the night, And dull is the star which ought to be my guide.3
But if my star should rise and turn back the dark, My mind will no longer know the darkness of grief.
You are my day star, my Lucifer:4
Without you even light is night to me, And with you even night is splendid light.
Farewell, my star, whose splendor never wanes. Farewell, my highest hope, in whom alone I am well pleased, whom I never need bring back to mind since you never fade from mind. Farewell.
21: The Woman to the Man To her beloved, both in species and from experience of the thing itself:
The being that she is.
My mind is busy with many questions about "things,"5 but it fails me, run through as it is by the sharp hook of love. . . . As fire cannot be mastered by any material thing but water, which nature makes its effective remedy, so my love cannot be healed by anything but you, who are its only remedy.
What can I give you in return? My mind is troubled, I do not know. Glory of our young men, peer of our poets,6 how beautiful you are to see, yet how much nobler you are to love. Being with you is my joy, being apart my sorrow. With equal force and in either case, I love you.
Farewell.
22: The Man to the Woman To his jewel, fairer and brighter than the present day From him who is wrapped in deep shadow:
What else but that you glory in your natural radiance without cease?
3 Cf. the poem "Dull Is the Star."
4 Lucifer, the day star, as in Job 11:17 and 2 Pet. 1:19. Cf. Letter 22 below.
5 The salutation of this letter uses the formal terminology of dialectic. It is possible that res in the first line of the body of the letter also should be understood in a technical way as "entities which have real being"; or the word may have its ordinary, nontechnical meaning of, simply, "things." Double quotes have been set around the word in the translation at least to allow for the first possibility.
6 Perhaps in direct response to Letter 20.
APPENDIX B
Naturalists tell us that the moon takes its light from the sun. Deprived of this light, without benefit of heat or luster of its own, it shows to mortals only a dim and pallid sphere. And so it is with you and me. You are my sun, and with the happy splendor of your face you shine and give me light. I have no light but yours; without you I am faded, dark, dull, dead. But, to tell the truth, you give me more than the sun gives the moon. For the moon grows dim as it nears the sun, but the nearer I move to you, the closer I come to you, the more I burn and grow so inflamed that when I am right by you—as you have often seen—I become all fire, ablaze to the marrow of my bones.
What can I do to answer all your kindness? Nothing, I think, since in your deeds you transcend even the sweetest of your words and exceed them all in the proof of your love, so that you seem poorer in words than in deeds. Among the countless things that set you above any others, you now have this as well—that, rich in deeds but poor in words, you do more for a lover than you say. It is as much to your glory as deeds are more difficult than words. . . .
You are buried forever in my breast, and from this tomb you will never arise so long as I live. There you lie and there you rest. You are with me when I fall asleep, and while I sleep you never leave me, and after sleep I wake to see you before I see the sun itself. Others have my words, you have my thoughts. I often stumble over words because my thoughts are elsewhere. Who can then deny you are buried within me? . . . Time presses upon us, jealous of our love, but still you delay as if we had all the time in the world.
Farewell.
24: The Man to the Woman To a soul brighter and dearer than anything the earth has brought forth
From the flesh which that soul causes to breathe and move:
All I owe to her through whom I breathe and move.
The richness of your letters—and yet their insufficiency—brings me the clearest evidence of two things, your overflowing faith and your love: as it is written, "Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth doth speak."7 . . . I receive your letters so eagerly that they always seem brief to me, both sating and inflaming my desire. I am like a man who is suffering from a fever: the more he drinks and is refreshed, the hotter he becomes. As God is my witness, I am moved in a strange way the closer I look at your letters, a strange way, yes, because my heart is then struck with a joyful shudder and my
7 Matt. 12:34.
FROM THE LETTERS OF TWO LOVERS
body takes on a new habit and posture. Your letters are worthy of every praise, directing my attention as I read them wherever they wish.
You have often asked me, my sweet soul, what love is. I cannot excuse myself by claiming ignorance, as if I had been asked about something I have not known. For love has brought me under its command, not as some strange, external thing, but something familiar and close, even something within myself. Love is then a force of the soul, not existing through itself nor content in itself, but always pouring itself out into another with a certain appetite and desire, wanting to become one with the other and making from two diverse wills a single one in their non-difference.8 . . .
Love may be a universal thing, but it has been contracted into such a narrow space that I would boldly claim that it reigns only in us, that it has made its home in you and me. In us it is whole, protected, and sincere, for nothing is sweet or without care for one of us if it does not bring some benefit to us both: we affirm the same things, we deny the same things, we feel the same about everything. The way you anticipate my thoughts easily proves this; what I think about writing, you write to me first, and if I remember correctly, you have said the same about yourself.
Farewell, and think of me with steadfast love, the way I think of you.
25: The Woman to the Man To her treasure beyond compare, her delight beyond all delights of this world:
Blessedness without end, well-being without weakness.
I also have been thinking about love, what it is and what it can be, seeing how it derives from the likeness of our characters and interests, which most creates the bond of friendship, and how, once that is seen, it leads me to repay you with the exchange of love and also to obey you in all things. . . . If our own love could disappear on such a light impulse, it never was true love; and the sweet, smooth words that before now passed between us also were not true, but only pretended love. For love does not easily forsake whoever has once been pierced by its dart. You know, my heart's own love, that the duties of true love are performed well only when we owe them without pause, when we act for a friend as all our strength permits and never stop wishing to do more.
I will try, then, to repay this debt of love I owe to you but, to my sorrow, I cannot do so in full. But if my poor intelligence is not enough to wish you well as you deserve, then at least let my constant wish be of some benefit to you. For you should know, my love, and know it truly, that ever since your
8 The formal language of dialectic, known to everyone in the schools, is evident here, as it is in the following sentence, but used in a playful and parodic way. Cf. the Calamities, p. 4, n. 6.
APPENDIX B
love claimed my heart for its refuge—or I should say, its crude shack—it always has been a welcome guest, more beloved every day, and—unlike the usual course of things—its constant presence has not led to familiarity, and familiarity to trust, and trust to negligence, and negligence at last to loathing.
You desired me from the beginning of our friendship, but with a greater desire you have tried to make our love last and grow. Our heart, then, varies as your circumstances change: your joy becomes my gain, your adversity my bitter loss. But for you to fulfill what you began and to increase what you completed seem two separate things to me; in the first case, something is added that was lacking, in the second, something added that was complete. We may show perfect charity to everyone, but we do not love everyone the same: what is general for all becomes specific to a few. It is one thing to sit at the table of a prince, another to be a member of his council, a greater thing to be brought there out of love than simply invited to sit down. I owe you less for not driving me away than I do for welcoming me in your arms.
I will speak plainly to your brilliant mind and to your spotless heart. It is not a great thing if I love you, no, but a dreadful thing if I ever forget you.
And so, my dear, do not be away so often from your faithful friend who loves you. So far I have been able to bear it somehow, but now, hearing the song of birds, sensing the green of the forests, without your presence I languish for your love. I would have rejoiced in all these things if I also could enjoy being with you and speaking with you according to my wish. May
God do for me all I desire for you.
Farewell.
33: The Man to the Woman We must shake off this sloth and take up a new heat for writing along with the heat of the season. Will you go first, or shall I?
Farewell, you who are brighter than the present moon, more welcome than tomorrow's sun.
34: The Woman to the Man Farewell, and think: prudent delay is better than reckless haste. Choose a time for our meeting and let me know. Farewell.
45: The Woman to the Man To her house of cedar, the ivory column on which the whole house rests:
FROM THE LETTERS OF TWO LOVERS
The white of snow, the bright of moon, the light of sun, the height of stars, the delight of roses, the sight of lilies, the sweet of balsam, the might of earth, the respite of sky—and whatever else is sweet within their realm.
Let my lyre be at your service with my sweetly sounding drum. If all would happen as I wish, my most beloved, everything I send to you by letter I would say to you in person. . . . When you left, I went along with you in spirit and in mind, nothing was left at home except a useless, stolid body, and the pain your absence causes is known only to him who sees the secrets of each and every heart. As the desert land of Syria hopes for rain from the sky, so my mind longs for you in grief and care. But glory to God in heaven and joy to me on earth now that I know that you are alive and well, whom I love before all others. As often as Fortune casts me down, the consolation of your sweetness restores me. You ride now on the wheels of your virtues, and so are more precious to me than topaz or gold.9 And I cannot deny you any more than Byblis could deny Caunus, or Oenone could deny Paris, or Briseis could deny Achilles.10 . . . What more do I need to say? I send you all the joys that Antiphila had when Clinia came back to her.11 Do not be slow in coming, for the quicker you return, the quicker you will reason to be glad. Now, live and be well, so you may see the time of Elijah.12
55: The Woman to the Man To the dearest of all things alive, who will be loved more than life itself
From a lover deeply devoted:
Whatever is best from my whole heart and soul.
I am sure you know, my sweet light, that ashes placed on a sleeping fire never put it out, and though they cut off its light, they will not keep it from smoldering forever. Even so, nothing can ever happen to quench the memory of you, which I have bound to my heart with a chain of gold. Is there something more? As God is my witness, I love you with a true and sincere love.
My greatest sweetness, farewell.
9 Cf. Ps. 118:127.
10 Lovers out of Ovid, all of whom communicated by letter. For Byblis and Caunus, see Metamorphoses 9.454–665; for Oenone and Paris, Heroides 5; for Briseis and Achilles, Heroides 3.
11 Antiphila and Clinia are lovers in Terence's Heautontimorumenos.
12 In Mal. 4:5, Elijah is to come before the coming of the Lord; in Ecclus. 48:11, those who see Elijah are called blessed.
APPENDIX B
58: The Woman to the Man13 To a friend, as I once thought From the one who once was loved above all others with your words, but who now has lost love's privilege wrongfully:
What the eye hath not seen and what hath not entered the heart.14
Farewell. I hope you are quick to lighten my burden.
59: The Man to the Woman To his most beloved, who will be loved beyond everything that is or can be:
Well-being forever and the richest success in all good things.
Something unavoidable has come up and put its left foot against my desire.
I am the guilty one, who forced you to sin.
60: The Woman to the Man To him who up to now has been faithfully loved, who will not be loved from this time forward with a bond of weak devotion:
The firm promise of love and faith, nonetheless.
While your true love was seated firmly on its foundation, I had opened myself to you with a great pledge of charity and had placed all my hope in you, my tower of strength. You also know, if you can only grant it, that I have never been deceitful toward you and that I do not wish to be. Now, think and think again on this: I have borne many things for your sake fully and completely. I can never write with what strength, with what intensity, I first began to love you. If it was necessary for the ties between us to be severed, even though it may entail much bitterness, nonetheless they will not be broken again. No more of your outcries; I will not hear your words any more. Where I had only hoped for good, I have found tearful laments instead.
May almighty God, who wants no one to perish, who loves sinners with a love beyond a father's, brighten your heart with the splendor of his grace.
May he call you back to the road of salvation. And may you understand that his will is well-disposed and perfect.
13 Letter 58 begins a sequence in which the Woman and the Man appear to quarrel. As Letters 62 and 63 indicate, however, it has been a rhetorical exercise.
14 Cf. 1 Cor. 2.9.
FROM THE LETTERS OF TWO LOVERS
Farewell. Your wisdom and your knowledge have deceived me. From this point forward, let all our writing cease.
61: The Man to the Woman To his lady who is loved and who always will be loved From her most unhappy lover and friend, whose life and death now can scarcely be distinguished from each other:
That the road of the friendship we began might never come to an end, whether it is your will or not.
I do not know what sin I have committed that in such a short time you could wish to discard every feeling of compassion and closeness for me.
There can be only two possibilities: either I have sinned against you in some most serious way, or your earlier love had only been slight, that you can discard it so easily and carelessly now. If you do not explain to me more fully what you meant, I cannot see my guilty conduct toward you, unless you call it guilt to lament unhappiness and misfortunes to the one from whom some remedy is sought, some consolation expected. . . . These are not the words of a friend, not the words of someone whose heart was always kind, but of someone looking for a pretext, someone who has waited for a reason to break off love. What did I do, what did I say, I beg of you, to provoke such unforgiving words? You have thrown me half dead into the middle of the sea, have inflicted new wounds on my wounds, have heaped only pain on my pain. . . . If you had loved me, you would not have said all this. Now, choose anyone you like to judge between us, and I will clearly prove that you have sinned more against me than I have sinned against you. If anyone looked more closely at your words, he would see that they are not the words of a lover but of someone seeking a breech: nowhere in them is there a tender heart, but only a cruel breast, impervious to love. . . . But dry your tears, my soul, though I cannot dry mine.
Farewell. I received your letter with your tears, I return my letter with my own.
62: The Woman to the Man To a beloved From a beloved:
Whatever can be most honorable and most joyful among men.
If I had the wit and ease of expression to respond intelligently to your words, I would happily reply with the proper decorum. As it is, I will answer as best I can within the narrow limits of my learning, although I cannot do so to your satisfaction.
APPENDIX B
Let the matter between us be resolved so that you may face no danger and I no scandal. O the hard-heartedness of man! The often-cited proverb is true, that a man's devotion is tied to the throw of the dice. If you had had to suffer shackles or chains, iron or a prison, if you had had to face the sword,
I would have hoped you could not have stopped yourself from coming to me by any means you could and discussing with me those things you wrote about in your letter. I do not want any further tears to flow forth from your eyes. It is not proper for a man to cry. A man of firmness and of honor ought to conduct himself with gravity.
But it is time, my dearest, to stop these bitter and tearful disquisitions.
Let us put our hands to writing happier and more cheerful things. So, write me something happy, my beloved, sing me a happy song, live in good hope and good cheer. I think you have almost forgotten me, my sweetness— when will I see you? Save at least one happy hour for me.
63: The Man to the Woman To his most beloved:
Whatever sincere devotion demands uniquely of lovers.
. . . Your letter displayed well-formed sentences and an orderly and logical arrangement. I've never seen one more appropriately set out. And, God willing, my sweetest, I will put aside for you many hours, all of them sweet and full of joy.
Farewell, my heart.
66: The Woman to the Man Clio, be with me now.15 Give me a sign That you will grace my tablets with your song.
Let my sleepy mind awake, for it is now Enriched by her most glorious patronage.
And let every instrument of music play, Inspired by the breath of Jupiter.
Look! The day advances, night retreats.
Look! The day has come and night is routed.
Look! The troop of clerics begins to shine 15 Clio, presented as the chief of the Muses, all of whom make their appearances in this rather mechanical poem.
FROM THE LETTERS OF TWO LOVERS
In the reflected light of their own master, And the brilliance of their teacher puts to flight
The darkness of the one that came before him.
So, sing, you Muses, sing his praises now.
First, Clio, you: "O flower of clerics, hail!"
And then Euterpe: "May you reap all joys!"
Next Thalia: "Prosper in the waxing moon!"
Melpomene adds: "In winter storms as well!"
Terpsichore: "May you be blest forever!"
Blend your sweet song, Calliope, with theirs, You, too, Urania: "May he grow in virtue!"
Grant him honor and moral worth, Polymnia.
And you, Erato, speak your blessing now:
"Live long and be happy through the life of this world!
Live long and rejoice in the life to come When the blessed rejoice in each other forever!"
Let all the Muses sing: "Live long, live well, And may your joys outnumber the fish in the sea,
The grass in the field, the drops of water in ocean!"
What more is there to say? "Have peace!"
Amen.
Farewell, my breath, my inspiration.
74: The Man to the Woman Finally I understand, my sweetest, that you are mine in all your heart and soul since you can forget all the wrongs I have done—stupidly and heedlessly, with a mind too reckless and too weak to stand up to all my sorrows—to you, my most beloved, without thought. What I said was empty, weightless, meaning nothing; and if you, my heart, will compare my words with my actions, you will see they were only words, unconfirmed by any action. You ask about my health? If you are well, then I am well; if you are glad, then I am glad: I want only to tie myself to you in every fortune.
My heart, farewell.
101: The Man to the Woman To his starry eye:
Always to see what gives joy, never to feel what gives pain.
APPENDIX B
I am who I have been. Nothing about my love for you has changed, except that the flame of love grows greater each day. This one change I confess and concede, that my love increases every moment. I speak with more caution now, you will note, approach with more caution. Shame tempers love, modesty keeps it in check—it must not rush out in full flood—so we may have all our sweet desires and little by little put this rumor about us to rest.
Farewell.
102: The Woman to the Man To him who flows with milk and honey From the whiteness of milk and the sweetness of honey:
The liquid of every sweetness, the increase of saving joy.
As you are the most cherished, the most beloved in my heart, as you are the most fitting for my love, as you are most auspicious, the complete answer to my prayer, may you always be well, may you always live in sweetness— this I wish you with all of my heart. The most precious thing I have I give to you—myself, firm in love and faith, fixed in my desire, forever without change.
Farewell, be happy, may nothing offend you; and may nothing hurt me through you.