Our Loves are a creation of our societies
We All
Are Heloises And Abelards
Big romantic loves aren’t only a creation of our minds and
dreams. They are also a creation of our societies, as
Heloise and Abelard’s love vividly illustrates.
Would Heloise and Abelard’s love be possible nowadays?
We can uphold the yes-thesis. And even maintain that it
could be a yet bigger love, a truer one. Freed from the
constraints of medieval society, Abelard and Heloise could
have offered much more to one another, without falling into
separation and a monastic life.
But we can see things from a distinct angle. Would Abelard
and Heloise, in our time, without the repressions and
conventions of the French twelfth century, felt and loved
the way they did? And would they have written the letters
which have immortalized them? Obviously no. Heloise and
Abelard's love isn’t a twenty-first century love.
And we can even postulate a more cynical argument, and plead
that their love would very probably end in divorce, or at
least in a banal love. It was the Middle Age society and its
religious and repressive environment that created Abelard
and Heloise’s love.
In some sense we all are Abelards and Heloises. In the
millions of couples whose love falls into banality and turns
into divorce, there are many thousands of Abelards and
Heloises whose love could have been heroic and majestic, had
they been born in French castles, surrounded by monasteries
where men discussed Aristotelian logic and scholarly
philosophy that turned Abelard famous, and had they had the
powerful uncles engaged in defending their niece’s honour
sending men to «cut off those parts of the body» with which
Abelard had done that «which was the cause» of his «sorrow».
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Quotations
Love in Literature: Abelard and Heloise
Heloise, 1098-1164, French Religious, Lettres d’ Abelard
et Heloise
Peter Abelard, 1079 – 1142, French Logician, Historia
Calamitatum, Macmillan
Abelard
(some extracts from his letters):
We were united first in the dwelling that sheltered our
love, and then in the hearts that burned with it. Under the
pretext of study we spent our hours in the happiness of
love, and learning held out to us the secret opportunities
that our passion craved. Our speech was more of love than of
the books which lay open before us; our kisses far
outnumbered our reasoned words. Our hands sought less the
book than each other's bosoms - love drew our eyes together
far more than the lesson drew them to the pages of our text.
In order that there might be no suspicion, there were,
indeed, sometimes blows, but love gave them, not anger; they
were the marks, not of wrath, but of a tenderness surpassing
the most fragrant balm in sweetness. What followed? No
degree in love's progress was left untried by our passion,
and if love itself could imagine any wonder as yet unknown,
we discovered it. And our inexperience of such delights made
us all the more ardent in our pursuit of them, so that our
thirst for one another was still unquenched.
In
measure as this passionate rapture absorbed me more and
more, I devoted ever less time to philosophy and to the work
of the school. Indeed it became loathsome to me to go to the
school or to linger there; the labour, moreover, was very
burdensome, since my nights were vigils of love and my days
of study. My lecturing became utterly careless and lukewarm.
It was not long after this that Heloise found that she was
pregnant, and of this she wrote to me in the utmost
exultation, at the same time asking me to consider what had
best be done. Accordingly, on a night when her uncle was
absent, we carried out the plan we had determined on, and I
stole her secretly away from her uncle's house, sending her
without delay to my own country. She remained there with my
sister until she gave birth to a son, whom she named
Astrolabe
When her uncle and his kinsmen heard of this, they were
convinced that now I had completely played them false and
had rid myself forever of Heloise by forcing her to become a
nun. Violently incensed, they laid a plot against me, and
one night while I all unsuspecting was asleep in a secret
room in my lodgings, they broke in with the help of one of
my servants whom they had bribed. There they had vengeance
on me with a most cruel and most shameful punishment, such
as astounded the whole world; for they cut off those parts
of my body with which I had done that which was the cause of
their sorrow. This done, straightway they fled, but two of
them were captured and suffered the loss of their eyes and
their genital organs. One of these two was the aforesaid
servant, who even while he was still in my service, had been
led by his avarice to betray me.
Peter Abelard, Historia Calamitatum, Macmillan,
translated by Henry A. Bellows
Heloise
(some extracts from her letters):
God knows I never sought anything in you
except yourself; I wanted simply you, nothing of yours.
For not with me was my heart, but with you. But now, more
than ever, if it be not with you, it is nowhere. For without
you it cannot anywhere exist
But if I lose you what is left for me to hope for? What
reason for continuing on life's pilgrimage, for which I have
no support but you, and none in you save the knowledge that
you are alive, now that I am forbidden all other pleasures
in you and denied even the joy of your presence which from
time to time could restore me to myself?
For a long time my pretence deceived you, as it did many, so
that you mistook hypocrisy for piety; and therefore you
commend yourself to my prayers and ask me what I expect from
you. I beg you, do not feel so sure of me that you cease to
help me by your own prayers. Do not suppose me healthy and
so withdraw the grace of your healing. Do not believe I want
for nothing and delay helping me in the hour of my need. Do
not think me strong, lest I fall before you can sustain
me....
The letters of Abelard and Heloise,
Penguin Books, translated by Betty Radice
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