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History of the Franks

St Gregory of Tours, tr. Dalton, 1927

Book 1, 47. Of the Chastity of the Lovers

At the same period, Injuriosus, a wealthy man of a senatorial family in Auvergne, sought in marriage a girl of his own order; the dowry was paid, and the day of the wedding fixed. Each was an only child. When the day arrived and the marriage service had been celebrated, the pair, according to custom, were placed in the same bed. But the maid was grievously afflicted, turning to the wall and weeping bitterly. To whom the bridegroom: ‘Wherefore art thou troubled? tell me, I entreat thee.’ She still kept silent, and he continued: ‘I beseech thee, by Jesus Christ the Son of God, explain all to me, that I may understand the cause of thy grief.’ Thereupon she turned towards him and said: ‘Were I to go weeping all my days, never could I shed tears enough to wash away the measureless grief now in my breast. For I had resolved to keep my poor body for Christ, pure from the contact of man. But woe is me, who am in such wise forsaken of Him that I availed not to carry out my desire; and now on this day, which would I had not lived to see, I have lost that which I have preserved from the beginning of my life. For lo! forsaken by Christ, the immortal, who promised me Paradise for dower, it is my lot to be made the consort of a mortal man. In place of unfading roses, I have, not for adornment but for disfigurement, the roses that fade away. And whereas by the fourfold stream of the Lamb I should have put on the stole of purity, this robe hath shown itself a burden, not a glory. But wherefore draw we out this talk? Unhappy I, whose lot should have been Heaven, but who to-day am plunged in the abyss. Oh, if this was my fate, why was not the first day of my life also my last? Oh, would that I had entered the gate of death before I was nourished at my mother’s breast! Oh that the kisses of my dearest parents had been showered upon me in my death! For the precious things of this world are loathly to me; I lift up my eyes to the Redeemer’s hands, pierced for the life of the world. And I look no longer on diadems sparkling with finest gems, for with the eye of the mind I gaze upon that crown of thorns. I abhor thy great estate extending far and wide, for I desire the joys of Paradise. Loathed are thy chambers when I behold the Lord seated above the stars.’ To her, pouring forth such plaints with many tears, the youth, moved by compassion, thus replied: ‘We are the only children of parents, the most noble in Auvergne, who desire our union to perpetuate their line, that no foreign heir should succeed them when they depart from this life.’ She made answer: ‘The earth is naught; wealth is naught; the pomp of this world is naught. Naught likewise is this life which we enjoy; but rather should we seek the life not closed by the death that maketh end of all, which is not wasted by any disease, or cut off by any accident. Therein man, abiding in eternal bliss, liveth in a light that setteth not, and, a greater thing than all this, translated to the angelic state and in the very presence of the Lord, enjoying ever fresh contemplation, rejoiceth with indissoluble joy.’ To this he answered: ‘Through this thy sweetest eloquence, eternal life hath shone upon me, as it were a mighty radiance. If therefore it be thy will to abstain from fleshly desires, I will join thee in thy resolve.’ She replied: ‘It is hard for the male sex to grant this thing to women. Yet if thou so orderest all that we remain unspotted in the world, I will share with thee the dower promised me by my spouse, the Lord Jesus Christ, to whom I have vowed myself as handmaiden and bride.’ Thereto, armed with the sign of the Cross, he answered: ‘I will do that which thou enjoinest.’ They clasped hands, and gave themselves to sleep. And afterwards for many years they lay in one bed, living together in laudable chastity. Which was afterwards declared in their death. For when, her life’s battle done, the maid passed to Christ and the man had done all things for her burial, as he laid her in the tomb he spake thus: ‘I give Thee thanks, everlasting Lord, that I render to Thy loving care in all its purity this treasure which I received from Thee in trust.’ Whereupon she answered with a smile: ‘Wherefore speakest thou so when none questioned thee?’ And not long afterwards he followed her to the grave. Their tombs were placed by different walls, and now was revealed a miracle without its like, to make manifest their chastity. For when the people came to the place in the morning, they found the tombs side by side, though they had left them far apart. Which thing shows that when two are united in heaven, the tomb that holds their bodies buried may not keep them asunder. The people of that place have chosen to call these twain ‘The Two Lovers’ until this day. And I myself have told their story in my book of Miracles.¹

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