Star Crossed Lovers / Myths & Religion

• The Spanish version is Los Amantes de Teruel, "The Lovers of Teruel": they were childhood friends but he was poor, she was rich, and he left to fight the Moors and find enough money to be allowed to marry her. When he returned, though, he found that her father had made her marry another man. He tried to get her to kiss him, but when she said she couldn't cheat on her husband no matter how much she loved him, he died of grief. During the funeral, she appeared dressed in her wedding dress to say her goodbyes, kissed his corpse and collapsed dead as well. They were buried together. And, since then, there is a refrain about them:
  Los Amantes de Teruel, tonta ella, tonto él. (The Lovers of Teruel, stupid him, stupid her.)
• Arthurian Legend:
  • King Arthur's wife Guinevere and his best knight Lancelot have a secret affair, which is also a form of Bodyguard Crush and Courtly Love. Their affair being exposed is what leads to the downfall of everyone involved and even the kingdom of Camelot.
  • The legend of Tristan and Iseult is an influential romance and tragedy, retold in numerous sources with as many variations. The tragic story is of the adulterous love between the lovers. Prince Tristan travels to Ireland to bring back Iseult for his uncle King Mark of Cornwall to marry. Along the way, Tristan and Iseult ingest a Love Potion which causes them to fall madly in love. There's different versions of their tragic end. In the popular extended version of the Prose Tristan, King Mark discovers the affair and he kills the lovers with a lance. In Thomas' poem, Tristan is wounded by a poisoned lance and sends his friend Kahedin to find Iseult, the only person who can heal him. Tristan tells Kahedin to sail back with white sails if he is bringing Iseult and black sails if he is not. Iseult agrees to return to Tristan with Kahedin, but Tristan's jealous wife, Iseult of the White Hands, lies to Tristan about the color of the sails. Tristan dies of grief, thinking Iseult has betrayed him, and Iseult dies over his corpse.
• Aztec Mythology: Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl. It refers to a number of mythical and folkloric explanations of the origins of the volcanoes Popocatépetl ("the Smoking Mountain") and Iztaccíhuatl ("white woman" in Nahuatl, sometimes called the Mujer Dormida aka "sleeping woman" in Spanish) which overlook the Valley of Mexico. The most popular version of the myth says that the warrior and nobleman Popocatépetl went to war in Oaxaca to overcome the Parental Marriage Veto coming from his beloved Princess Iztaccíhuatl's father; however, this was an Uriah Gambit from her dad, and when it failed he told his daughter that her beloved boyfriend had died in battle and she succumbed to Death by Despair. When poor Popocatépetl returned and found himself in the path of his girlfriend's funeral, he fell in despair and commited suicide on the spot; the Gods then covered them in snow and transformed their corpses in mountains, with Popocatépetl's angry and pained spirit transforming his new rock body into a volcano rather than a simple hill.
• Chinese Mythology:
  • The Weaver and the Cowherd, a legend of the stars Vega and Altair. Star-crossed lovers Zhi Nu and Niu Lang are separated forever across the Milky Way. They may only reunite once a year when magpies form a bridge between them. This is the basis of the Chinese cultural equivalent to Valentine's Day.
  • Tanabata no Matsuri is the Japanese version, with Orihime and Hikoboshi as the star-crossed lovers.
  • And Chilseok as the Korean version with Jik-nyeo and Gyeonwu.
  • The Butterfly Lovers is a Chinese legend of a tragic love story of a pair of lovers, Liang Shanbo (梁山伯) and Zhu Yingtai (祝英台), whose names form the title of the story. The title is often abbreviated to Liang Zhu (梁祝) and often regarded as the Chinese equivalent of Romeo and Juliet. The girl, Yingtai, convinces her father to let her disguise herself as a young man in order to attend school. She meets and becomes roommates and best friends with Shanbo, a nerd who doesn't pick up that his roommate is actually a girl. Eventually he figures it out and they fall in love. Unfortunately, Yingtai is betrothed to someone else; Shanbo becomes heartbroken and eventually dies. On her wedding day to the Romantic False Lead, Yingtai visits Shanbo's grave. The ground swallows her up and both of their spirits become beautiful butterflies.
• Classical Mythology:
  • Hero and Leander. It's a Greek myth, relating the story of Hero (Greek: Ἡρώ), a priestess of Aphrodite who dwelt in a tower in Sestos, at the edge of the Hellespont, and Leander (Greek: Λέανδρος, Leandros), a young man from Abydos on the other side of the strait. Leander fell in love with Hero and would swim every night across the Hellespont to be with her. Hero would light a lamp at the top of her tower to guide his way. When Leander drowned during a storm, Hero threw herself off the tower.
  • Played with and ultimately subverted for Prince Paris of Troy and Helen of Sparta. Aphrodite gives Helen to Paris as a reward for picking her as the most beautiful goddess. The problem is Helen was already married to King Menelaus of Sparta, and her leaving him to be with Paris leads to The Trojan War where Paris is eventually killed. However, their relationship was of Questionable Consent to begin with, with most accounts stating that Helen was either abducted or roofied by Aphrodite so that she would fall in love with Paris and elope with him. Even in accounts where she left "willingly," Helen comes to regret her choice after growing disillusioned with Paris and homesick for Sparta. In The Iliad, she openly berates Paris for being a Dirty Coward and a weakling, wishing that he was more like Menelaus, whom she still seems to have feelings for. By the events of The Odyssey, she and Menelaus have reconciled and returned to Sparta, where she seems much happier than she was with Paris at Troy.
  • Orpheus and Eurydice. When Orpheus' wife dies from a snake bite on their wedding night, he does what any doting husband would do: he dives down to the depths of the Underworld to rescue her. After hashing things out with Hades, Eurydice is freed on the condition that Orpheus will not look at her until they return to Greece. It shouldn't come as a surprise that Orpheus fails. His beloved is sent back to the Underworld, leaving Orpheus to wander the countryside. In some versions, such as Gluck's opera Orfeo ed Euridice, Orpheus attempts suicide so he can return to Eurydice forever, only to be talked out of it and for his undying love to be rewarded by Eurydice returning to life anyway.
  • Troilus and Cressida. Trojan prince Troilus falls in love with Cressida. After vowing to be faithful, Cressida is traded to the Greek camp during The Trojan War, where she cheats on Troilus with the Greek warrior Diomedes. Troilus witnesses Cressida's unfaithfulness and vows to put more effort into the war.
  • Aphrodite and Adonis. While Adonis was out hunting, he was wounded by a wild boar and he died in the arms of a grief-stricken Aphrodite. In different versions of the story, another god (either Aphrodite's jealous lover Ares, or Artemis/Apollo who wanted revenge on Aphrodite over a past grudge) sent the boar to kill Adonis. Aphrodite turned the blood that dripped from his wounds onto the soil into windflowers (Anemones) as a memorial to their love.
  • Aeneas and Dido. The Queen of Carthage falls in love with the Trojan hero Aeneas and they conduct a passionate affair that lasts until the gods order Aeneas to leave Dido and continue his journey towards Italy. When Dido realizes her lover has abandoned her, she has her sister Anna build her a funeral pyre to burn herself along all the possessions that reminded her of Aeneas and she curses him and his Trojans, proclaiming endless hate between Carthage and the descendants of Troy. Dido ascends the pyre, lies again on the couch which she had shared with Aeneas, and then stabs herself with a sword that Aeneas had given her.
  • Pyramus and Thisbe. Their respective parents, driven by rivalry, forbid them to be together and they were able to communicate only through a crack in the wall between their houses. The lovers at last resolved to flee together and agreed to meet under a mulberry tree, but as she arrived, Thisbe was terrified by the roar of a lioness and ran away. In her haste, she dropped her veil, which the lioness tore to pieces with jaws stained with the blood of an ox. Believing that Thisbe had been devoured by the lioness, Pyramus stabbed himself. When Thisbe returned and found her lover mortally wounded under the mulberry tree, she put an end to her own life. In the end, the gods listen to Thisbe's lament, and forever change the colour of the mulberry fruits into the stained colour to honor forbidden love.
  • Oedipus and Jocasta from Oedipus the King in a particularly tragic case of Surprise Incest. The pair don't find out that they are mother and son until years later after raising a family together. Afterwards, Jocasta kills herself in shame and Oedipus blinds himself to then spend the rest of his life in exile.
• Egyptian Mythology: Geb and Nut, god of the earth and goddess of the sky, respectively, are forever kept separated by their father Shu, god of air and light. As in, he physically holds them apart so they can't touch more than their toes and fingertips. One version has him trying to prevent the birth of the god Set.
• The Exile of the Sons of Uisnech: Deirdre and Naoise in the tragedy Deirdre of the Sorrows. Deirdre, betrothed against her will to King Conchobhar of Ulster, has just reached marriageable age in Iron-Age Ireland (15 for women, 18 for men) when she falls in love with Naoise and they flee Ulster to Scotland with Naoise's brothers to escape the wrath of King Conchobhar. While their romance ends tragically, in some versions they are buried together and in many versions a yew tree grows from each of their graves and twine around each other, so that the lovers are Together in Death.
• German folk ballad Es waren zwei Königskinder ("There were two royal children") tells a similar story to the Hero and Leander's myth. Here the three candles in the window are extinguished by a "false nun" (who in some versions is a Norn).
• There are some legends through Latin America that refer to native badass princesses that fight the Spanish settlers, fall in love with kindly Spanish soldiers, and end up dying tragically with him as they're stuck between both sides. The most popular one is included among the many versions of the La Tirana myths, featuring the Qulla leader Nusta Huillac and her alleged Spanish lover Vasco de Almeida. Other legends and myths including Guanina and Don Cristobal de Sotomayor, and Juan de Salcedo and Kandarapa.
• The legend about the Llanquihue Lake in Southern Chile features the Huilliche princess Licarayén and her boyfriend, the World's Strongest Man Quiltrapi. The evil spirit Peripillán wanted Licarayén for himself and activated two loval volcanos, Osorno and Calbuco, to threaten their surroundings and destroy them: the only solution was to invoke the help of other spirits, but offering the girl as a Virgin Sacrifice to them. The All-Loving Heroine Licarayén decided to go through it and save her people, only asking in exchange that her beloved Quiltrapi would sacrifice her on a bed of flowers; when all was said and done and Licarayén was dead, he killed himself to be Together in Death with her. All of this moved the local spirits enough to have them send out copious quantities of snow to cover the volcanoes and defeat Peripillán, ultimately creating the Llanquihue Lake when said snow melted; they also buried the doomed lovers in a palace made of flowers and plants as thanks for Licarayén's love for her people.
• The Mahabharata narrates the story of Kacha and Devayani. The gods were at war with the Asuras and were frustrated that Sage Shukracharya would always resurrect the Asuras. So Indra approached his mentor's son, Kacha and pleaded him to learn the art of resurrection from Shukracharya. So Kacha went to Shukracharya and became his disciple for a period of 1000 years. Although Shukracharya was aware of Kacha's intentions, he liked his dutiful nature and let him spend time with his daughter, Devayani. Devayani fell in love with Kacha. Meanwhile, the Asuras suspected Kacha's intentions and killed him. However, on Devayani's pleadings, Shukracharya resurrected his disciple whenever he was killed. One day, the Asuras killed Kacha and this time, they cremated him and mixed his ashes in wine, which they offered it to Shukracharya. Later, the sage was shocked to learn that Kacha was in his stomach. Left with no choice, Shukracharya taught Kacha the art of resurrection. Kacha emerged from Shukracharya and revived his teacher. After 1000 years were over, Kacha took leave of his teacher and returned to his abode. He took leave of Devayani, who confessed her feelings for him. Kacha replied that since he was reborn from Shukracharya, he is technically her brother and cannot marry her. Devayani curses Kacha that he will never be able to use the art of resurrection. Kacha replies that he can still teach the art to the gods and curses Devayani that she will never find marital happiness.
• Mesopotamian Mythology: Innana/Ishtar and Dumuzi, the story of the vegetation god whose annual death and resurrection cause the seasons because of the misery of his bereaved love.
• Persian Mythology: Layla and Majnun (by the Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi). It is a classical Arabian love story. It is based on the real story of a young man called Qays ibn al-Mulawwah from the northern Arabian Peninsula, in the Umayyad era during the 7th century. There were two Arabic versions of the story at the time. In one version, he spent his youth together with Layla, tending their flocks. In the other version, upon seeing Layla he fell passionately in love with her. In both versions, however, he went mad when her father prevented him from marrying her; for that reason he came to be called Majnun Layla, which means "Driven mad by Layla". To him were attributed a variety of incredibly passionate romantic Arabic poems, considered among the foremost examples of the Udhari school.