VI. The Two Lovers 
This happened in Normandy many years
ago, a story to call forth tears
of sympathy from those who care
for lovers: this unfortunate pair
died for love. And even today
the Bretons tell their tale in a lay
they call “The Two Lovers,” and I
shall tell it to you or, anyway, try.
There is in Neustria (which we call
Normany now) a mountain, tall
and beetling, where two lovers lie.
On one side of the mountain, the high
lord of the Pistrians built a town
he called Pîtres, which has come down
to our own time, and you can see
the walls of the houses and buildings he
erected, and we still refer
to the Valley of Pîtres. Living there
with the king was his beautiful daughter, who
had brought him joy and comfort, too,
since the death of her mother, the queen.
Possessive, as some fathers have been
as widowers, this ruler went
to great lengths to try to prevent
young men from seeking his daughter’s hand.
He proclaimed throughout the kingdom that she
could marry no man unless he
was able to carry her in his arms
up the mountain beyond the farms
that loomed up into the sky.
Many young men came to try
but not even the strongest could
get more than halfway up. They would
sooner or later put her down
and, ashamed of themselves, return to town.
After a time there were fewer and still
fewer who came to try, until
it seemed that her father’s plan had been clever
and that she would remain unwed forever.
There was in that country a young son
of a count, noble and handsome, one
who strove to excel and gain prestige.
He came to the court to visit his liege
and fell in love with the daughter whom he
courted, addressing her ardently.
She found him engaging and thinking of
her poor chances of married love
because of her father’s arbitrary
rules, she chose to do the very
thing most fathers fear and gave
her love to the young man who was brave
enough to agree to conceal their connection
and any signs of their affection.
They loved each other deeply, but this
having to hide it diminished their bliss
and tested the young man’s limited patience.
After a number of awkward occasions
when they had almost been found out
he came to her to speak about
elopement. They could run away.
The alternative was that they could stay
and he would have to try to carry
her up the mountain so they could marry.
He was afraid that he would fail
in this attempt but did not prevail,
for she answered him that if they were
to flee, her father, missing her
would be in torment and misery
for which she would be responsible. She
had another idea — she had
an aunt in Salerno. rich, half-mad,
but of great skill in medical lore,
familiar with herbs and the uses for
various roots. “You’ll have from me
a letter that will explain how we
need her assistance. She will make
potions and pastes for you to take
that will increase your strength until
you can succeed, as I know you will,
in carrying me to the very peak
of the mountain, as you must do to seek
my hand.” The young man now had cause
for hope and his demeanor was
transformed. The next day at dawn
he said goodbye and he was gone.
He returned home for money and clothes,
pack horses, servants, and all of those
things one needs for a journey. From there
he went on to Salerno where
the aunt lived. He gave her the note,
which she read through (I need not quote
the text). She then put into her mixer
all the ingredients for an elixir
for strength as well as endurance. He
tried it and it worked. So she
put some into a vessel he could
take back with him. He made good
time and soon arrived at the court
where he settled in and then in short
order asked the king for his
daughter. His majesty smiled at this,
thinking how many burly men
had tried and failed. Cheerfully, then,
he gave his permission. She, meanwhile,
had been preparing for this trial,
eating nothing so as to weigh
as little as possible on that day.
She also wore a gauzy shift
that would be no added burden to lift.
The king summoned the gentry and
the commoners throughout the land
to come and see the candidate
for his daughter’s hand who would demonstrate
his strength in the now conventional way.
As the king presented his daughter they
all applauded. Before the trial
the young man handed her the phial
containing the potion for her to hold.
(Of the power of its contents he’d told
her long before.) At the bank of the Seine
the young man lifted her up and then
began the climb and ascended to
the halfway point. From her he drew
great happiness and courage. She
urged him to drink from the phial, but he
said that he felt strong and had no
need for the medicine yet to go
on. Besides I do not desire
to let them see me stopping. Higher
up, perhaps, when I cannot go
three steps more, I shall let you know,
and then I’ll drink.” Two-thirds of the way
to the top, in pain, he heard her say,
“Stop, my love. You are tired, I think.
This is the moment when you should drink
the potion.” But he took no heed of
her offer, relying only on love
to get him to the peak. In vain
she offered again, and he, in pain,
refused and trudged on to the top,
which he did reach — only to stop,
totter, and fall, never to move
again. They terrified maiden strove
to revive him. She held the phial to his lips
and urged him to take little sips
but he could not speak. He had no breath,
and this she recognized as death.
The heart he had given her had tried
too hard and broken, and he had died.
She wailed and moaned and threw away
the potion in a circular spray
(wherever drops of it touched the ground
shepherds say that flowers abound).
What then of the girl? She lay down beside
the body of the man and cried,
took him in her arms to embrace,
kissed his eyelids, lips, and face.
Her heart, too, broke in its woe
and she stopped breathing, dead also.
Below, the king grew worried, waiting
for them to return, and, hesitating
only a little climbed to discover
his daughter dead with her dead lover.
He fainted but recovered to weep
at what had happened and to keep
a three-day vigil there on the crest
of the mountain. Then, at his behest,
a marble sarcophagus was made
into which the bodies were laid.
Because of what happened there it was named
the Mountain of Two Lovers. The famed
couple are thus celebrated
by the Breton lay I have just narrated.