Chapter 44 - How Dona Inês was translated to the Monastery of Alcobaça, and concerning the death of King Pedro
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 December 2023
Summary
Such a love as the one that King Pedro had for Dona Inês has rarely been found in anyone. In this respect the Ancients have said that no one is so truly loved as one whose death the long passage of time is incapable of erasing from the memory. If anyone should say that there have been many who loved as much as he or more, such as Ariadne and Dido and others whom we do not name, as can be read in their letters, the response is that we are not speaking of invented lives, which some authors, well-supplied with eloquence and flourishing in rhetorical skill, set forth any way they liked, uttering in the names of such people things that none of them ever thought of; rather, we are speaking of those loves that are told of and read in historical accounts, whose basis lies in the truth.
King Pedro had this true love for Dona Inês from the moment when he fell in love with her, being married and still the Crown Prince, so that although at the beginning he was unable to see and talk to her, as they were apart from each other, which is the main reason for love to be lost, he never stopped sending her messages, as you have heard in its place. How much he strove thereafter to be with her, and what he did because of her death, and what punishments he dealt out to those who were guilty of it, going against his oath, all clearly prove what we are saying. Being mindful of honouring her remains, since he could no longer do anything else for her, he ordered the fashioning of a tomb of white stone, all very skilfully wrought, on top of which was her image with a crown on her head, as if she had been a queen.
He had this tomb placed in the Monastery of Alcobaça, not at the entrance where the kings are laid to rest, but inside the church to the right, near the chancel. He had her body brought from the Monastery of Santa Clara in Coimbra, where it was lying, with as much honour as could be shown.
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- The Chronicles of Fernão LopesVolume 1. The Chronicle of King Pedro of Portugal, pp. 159 - 161Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2023