Feel me within the root of the stone…
We have planted time upon the fertile foundation of our steps
and the absolute of sap will emerge
when the echoes of tears
are nothing more than shadowed glories adorning thresholds
of the end of the world where I await you by the bloom of night
so that we may harvest from the tree of soul
the infinite genesis of a ripe dawn on the lips, immortal
of this regal love…

Digital artwork & Poem © 2005 Alexandra* ~ OneLight*® Authors & Creations

She came to his father’s realm as lady in waiting to the one who would become his queen when he became king. And beyond all political interests, beyond all alliances nurturing wars and intrigues wrought in irons of ever unquenched thirst for power and hunger for blood, they fell in love, a love none of them could or wanted to evade, for their thirst and hunger for one another were even more powerful and cut into their beings far deeper than any swords. But envy and greed are monsters of poisonous bite, and, unleashed by enemies wearing the fake cloaks of counsellors, they chewed into the old king’s soul and undermined his reasoning with venom against the mistress of the young prince’s heart.

Oblivious to the impending doom, the lovers went on planting, watering, and nourishing the tree of their love, which had, in the meantime, spread in lush boughs that were already bearing new fruits of life. But the monsters and their evil paladins lurked in the shadows, and one night, while the prince, unaware of the deadly conspiracy, heeded his father’s summons to the capital of the kingdom, they crept into that beautiful orchard where dreams ripened, and mercilessly perpetrated their ruthless, hideous deed. Blood now tainted the fertile ground where love had been seeded, taken root, then grown.

Then, one day, the prince became a wise and proficient king, but his heart, which was that of a kind, loving, compassionate and magnanimous man, had been ripped from his chest, and all that remained was the scorched, concave scar of incurable longings – a searing longing for vengeance, and a blazing longing for his love. Soon earned the king, in History, his surname with paradoxical significance, “The Righteous” or “The Inflexible”, by inflicting on those who had thus deprived him his love and his life the most cruel of punishments: Their hearts were ripped, still beating, from their bodies, through a gash made by a dagger on their backs.

And soon would that other longing of the man beyond the king take root, once more, both in a dark, intense legend, and in a poignant tribute, which the essence of hope and infinite adoration would immortalize in History, in the form of a promise engraved upon a tombstone;

The legend is that of “the one who was crowned queen after her death”, a tale that has fired the inspiration of many of the finest bards, playwrights and poets throughout the ages, and still does, to this day. Countless novels, poems, plays and movies depict the eerie, somber atmosphere of a ceremony, during which terrified courtiers are forced to pay homage to the exhumed corpse of a woman, propped upon a throne and wearing a crown over a white veil that covered her head and hid her face.

As for the truly immortal story, it is as real as two tombs that attract admiring crowds from all over the world to a certain monastery, in a small country of Europe. They are pure, awe-inspiring, exquisite works of art, in which the stone has been carved with the incredible delicacy of lace. Upon them, reclined, the semblances of a king and a queen, dignified, serene. The tombs are not side by side; amazingly, they are placed in such manner that the figures upon them are actually feet to feet. This is the first overwhelming symbol of one of the most inspiring stories of love ever; by ordering that their tombs were placed feet to feet, the king made the symbolic promise to his beloved queen that her face would be his first view, when, upon the Final Judgement, both would rise from death.

One more symbol, conceivably even more daunting, is that substantiated in a sentence, which the king had engraved on his tomb, and of which time and damages have erased a part, but not the deep wholeness of its significance: “Ab fine mund…” is what can still be perceived by the eye of the visitor; “Till the end of the world”… is, simultaneously, the meaning and the belief in the immortality of love.

The scenery of this story of love was “Quinta das Lágrimas”, “the farm of the tears”, located near a city named Coimbra. The monastery of Alcobaça holds their magnificent tombs. He is designated in History as king Pedro I of Portugal (1357 – 1367). She was Inês de Castro.

Both have, indeed, become immortal in the memories of people, simply as Pedro and Inês; two beings whose love will bear and share fruits beyond… "the end of the world".

Love&Light* to you!