Heloise

Some years ago now, I entertained the notion of turning the extraordinary story of Abelard and Heloise into a musical. In the event, only one song was written (below). Abelard was Heloise's tutor, and her senior by some years. They had an affair, which was discovered by Heloise's uncle. The uncle sent a gang of roughs after Abelard, and they assaulted and castrated him. Abelard made straight for a monastery, and he and Heloise exchanged some of the most extraordinary letters in history. This song is adapted from Heloise's first, deeply passionate and courageous letter. Heloise, effectively jilted by her castrated lover, eventually ended up joining a convent, where she became a very successful abbess. I have chosen to illustrate the song with a nineteenth century depiction of the Virgin Mary, because the irony appeals to me. The word "whore" is used in Heloise's own letter.

 

Heloise to Abelard: Letter 1

 

If Augustus, Emperor of the world,

Had pledged to marry me,

And make me Empress of all things:

Of earth, and sky, and sea,

To make the stars my own possession

And all the armouries of war:

I’d turn him down, content to be

Not his Empress, but your whore.

 

In those precarious early days;

The days of our conversion,

When your mutilated pain

Killed what they called perversion,

You could have come to comfort me,

The man for whom I longed,

But you were all forgetfulness

And I was sorely wronged.

 

You knew the love I bore for you:

A love beyond all bounds,

And in my ears, in silent hours,

Our marriage bell still sounds.

All the world knows, beloved,

How much in you I lost,

And how my sorrow, shed in tears

Paid the bitter cost.

 

You alone have caused me sorrow;

You only can console.

You have the power to make me wretched

And the power to make me whole.

I carried out your orders, love,

Loyal to your command;

I have the strength to kill myself

If you should so demand.

 

To heights of madness my love rose:

To do what you required:

To willingly deprive myself

Of what I most desired.

I changed my clothing and my mind

Your bidding to fulfil:

You were possessor of my body

And possessor of my will.

 

God knows I sought nought but yourself,

And want nought else e’en now:

I sought no dowry from your chest;

I sought no marriage vow.

For I would go to any length

Your lust to satisfy:

It was your pleasure and your will

I sought to gratify.

 

More sacred is the name of wife,

More binding in God’s eyes,

But my soul is wrenched with pain,

And unto you it cries:

Sweeter to me is the name

Of mistress - even more

I prefer thus to be known:

Your concubine and whore.

 

Lyric by Giles Watson, 2000.

 

Here is a part of Heloise's original text:

 

You know, beloved, as the whole world knows, how much I have lost in you, how at one wretched stroke of fortune that supreme act of flagrant treachery robbed me of my very self in robbing me of you; and how my sorrow for my loss is nothing compared with what I feel for the manner in which I lost you. Surely the greater the cause for grief the greater the need for the help of consolation, and this no one can bring (but you; you are the sole cause of my sorrow, and you alone can grant me the grace of consolation. You alone have the power to make me sad to bring me happiness or comfort: you alone have so great a debt to repay me, particularly now when I have carried out all your orders so implicitly that when I was powerless to oppose you in anything, I found strength at your command to destroy myself. I did more, strange to say - my love rose to such heights of madness that it robbed itself of what it most desired beyond hope of recovery, when immediately at your bidding I changed my clothing along with my mind, in order to prove you the sole possessor of my bed and my will alike. God knows I never sought anything in you except yourself; I wanted simply you, nothing of yours. I looked for no marriage-bond, no marriage portion, and it was not my own pleasures and wishes I sought to gratify, as you well know, but yours. The name of wife may seem more sacred or more binding, but sweeter for me will always be the word mistress, or, if you will permit me, that of concubine or whore. I believed that the more I humbled myself on your account, the more gratitude I should win from you, and also the less damage I should do to the brightness of your reputation.

 

You yourself on your own account did not altogether forget this in the letter of consolation I have spoken of which you wrote to a friend; there you thought fit to set out some of the reasons I gave in trying to dissuade you from binding us together in an ill-starred marriage. But you kept silent about most of my arguments for preferring love to wedlock and freedom to chains. God is my witness that if Augustus, Emperor of the whole world, thought fit to honour me with marriage and conferred all the earth on me to possess for ever, it would be dearer and more honourable to me to be called not his Empress but your whore.

 

For a man’s worth does not rest on his wealth or power; these depend on fortune, but worth on his merits. And a woman should realize that if she marries a rich man more readily than a poor one, and desires her husband more for his possessions than for himself, she is offering herself for sale. Certainly any woman who comes to marry through desires of this kind deserves wages, not gratitude, for clearly her mind is on the man’s property, not himself, and she would be ready to prostitute herself to a richer man, if she could.

 

Done