The Most Tragic Love Stories in History

A painting of Antony and Cleopatra by Lawrence Alma-Tadema in 1885 CREDIT:

Nothing celebrates Valentine's Day quite like a good love story. And by good, we mean tragic, of course.

Though Shakespeare's plays are littered with doomed lovers — unrequited passion and death makes for good reading, apparently — couples equally as star-crossed can be found in the world's history books.

These five tragic historical tales from the ancient to more recent past are as sad as anything that has ever been conjured up in fiction:

Cleopatra and Mark Antony

It's a love story so epic that Shakespeare saw it fit to be the subject of one of his tragedies. They met in 41 B.C. at the height of turmoil in the Roman Republic; she, an Egyptian queen, seduced him, a powerful (and already married) general, into a romantic and tenuous political alliance between their territories. The alliance would prove sour when future emperor Octavian convinced the Roman senate that Antony was power-hungry and bewitched by Cleopatra, declaring war on his former partner in 31 B.C. Both Antony and Cleopatra committed suicide during the war rather than be captured.

Heloise and Abelard

British poet Alexander Pope turned their story into a piece of classic literature, but Heloise and Abelard were in fact real, ridiculously in love, and doomed to a tragic end in mid 12th century France. Abelard was the girl's live-in tutor, 20 years her senior, and the romance so enraged her disapproving uncle that he had Abelard castrated shortly after they were discovered. Distraught, the lovers entered the monastery and wrote a set of now-famous letters to each other until their death, though they never met again. 

Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal

Ever heard of the Taj Mahal? The famous palace in India is actually the ultimate declaration of love, built in the 17th century by Shah Jahan as a stunning final resting place for his beloved wife. Mumtaz Mahal — or "Jewel of the Palace," as he named her — was the ruler's third wife, but he clearly favored her and was so grief-stricken when she died during childbirth that he immediately began work on the Taj Mahal. It took 23 years to complete the homage, where he joined her at his own death in 1666.

Ines de Castro and King Pedro

Ines de Castro became a lady-in-waiting for Princess Constance of Portugal in 1340 and quickly stole the heart of her prince Pedro, the heir to the Portuguese throne. When Constance died in 1349, Pedro tried to make Ines his lawful queen — they already had three children together — but his father the king intervened, banishing Ines and ultimately having her murdered when geographical distance couldn't keep Pedro away. The act sparked a civil war between father and son and, when the latter claimed victory, Pedro exhumed his lover, built her a royal tomb, and had all of Portugal swear allegiance to Ines as their queen.  

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert

Our most modern of tragic love stories is just over a hundred years old and from an unlikely source — the British royal family. The love that Queen Victoria felt for her husband Prince Albert was as genuine as her 63-year reign was long, say historians, and his untimely death in 1861, 40 years before hers, devastated the otherwise powerful monarch. Victoria favored the color black for the rest of her life and spent much of the last decades of her reign in relative seclusion. When she finally passed away in 1901, she was interred in their common mausoleum and had these words inscribed over the door: "Farewell best beloved, here at last I shall rest with thee, with thee in Christ I shall rise again."

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