Feb 14th, St Valentin’s day: The story of the «Teruel’s lovers»

Shakespeare wrote about Romeo and Juliet because he had not read about these lovers. 😛

Los amantes de Teruel, 1884, Antonio Muñoz Degrain. Museo del Prado (Madrid)

I have found an English-speaking blog which treats the subject, so I don’t have to translate anything:

As the story goes, Teruel in the 1200s was home to Juan Diego de Marcilla and Isabel de Segura—he, the second son in his family and unlikely to receive much of an inheritance, and she, the only child of a wealthy nobleman. Diego and Isabel were madly in love with each other, but their romance was doomed unless he could prove himself worthy to her father. Diego convinced Don Pedro to give him five years to make his fortune and return triumphant. He promised Isabel he would come back for her and that they would soon be married.

Isabel waited those five years for Diego, yet never heard a word from him either good or ill. She turned down countless suitors and engaged in stalling tactics to prevent her father from marrying her off. Meanwhile, Diego was involved in wars against the Muslims to the south, be they inland or coastal battles. Yet he was too late: he failed to return to Teruel before the end of the fifth year. Don Pedro wasted no time in arranging a marriage for his daughter against her will, which was held the very next day.

Although he would enter the city gates of Teruel laden with gold, Diego was devastated when he learned that Isabel had already gotten married just a single day earlier. Heartbroken, he came to Isabel’s quarters at night and begged her, “bésame, que me muero” (“kiss me, for I am dying”). Isabel refused, saying that she was now a married woman. He asked her once more for a final kiss, but she denied him again, and Diego died at her feet.

At the funeral the next day, Isabel got up from her seat in the church and pushed back the coffin’s veil, kissing Diego and giving him in death the kiss she had denied him in life. She died on the spot, embracing the body of her deceased lover.

Moved by Isabel’s expression of love for Diego, the families decided to bury the two lovers together, side by side in the Church of San Pedro.

Trevor Huxham. The legend of the lovers of Teruel.
The tombs of the lovers…
… Whose hands never get to touch as a symbol of their own lives’ drama. Juan de Ávalos.

A legend from Middle Ages’ Spain, we really don’t know if it really happened or if it’s a mix of several other stories that circulated over the place. But it’s a dramatic and solemn story, that even has mottos said over it. I remember the oldies telling us an old saying «los amantes de Teruel/ tonta ella y tonto él» (the lovers of Teruel, she was dumb/silly and so was he) that, according to this website had a special meaning:

She was so called because of his innocence and purity of heart, while the dumb/silly he was simply so called because of his lack of business ability and his lack of success at court.

Es Aragón.

You can read more about this story here, here and here. All those links are in Spanish.



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