5 loving couples who, like in a fairy tale, died on the same day

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

These couples have very little in common - they are from different eras, from different classes, and the degree of reliability of information about their existence is also different. What they have in common is that they were destined to die with a difference of less than a day. “We lived happily and died in the same day” - what is behind this cliché from fairy tales?

Philemon and Baucis

The heroes of the ancient myth - Philemon and Bavkis - lived in a small village in Phrygia, when the Olympic gods - Zeus and Hermes (in the Roman version - Jupiter and Mercury) came there under the guise of ordinary travelers. They knocked on the houses of local residents, asking for an overnight stay, but no one opened it, only the poor hut of Philemon and Baucis opened its dilapidated doors, welcoming strangers. For their guests, the old people were going to slaughter their only goose, but he threw himself at Zeus's feet, and forbade touching the bird. And the food on the table began to appear by itself. Zeus revealed his name to the owners, led them up the mountain and they saw that their hut had turned into a majestic temple surrounded by water.

Philemon and Baucis were allowed to express any of their wishes - and they chose to serve as a priest and priestess in the temple of Zeus and die on the same day. And so it happened - after a long and prosperous life, they died simultaneously, turning after death into two trees growing from one root. The story of Philemon and Baucis was repeatedly reproduced in works of art, starting with Ovid's Metamorphoses.

Peter and Fevronia of Murom

The lives of these Orthodox saints are known from the "Tale of Peter and Fevronia", compiled in the 16th century by the monk Yermolai the Sinless, on behalf of Metropolitan Macarius. Peter was the brother of Prince Paul, who ruled in Murom, and, according to legend, he killed the fiery serpent that came to the princess with a sword. Drops of serpentine blood that fell on Peter, led to the fact that he fell ill with leprosy and suffered severe torment. No one could heal young Peter from the scabs, but in a dream he was told that for healing one had to go to the daughter of the "derevolzets" (the one who extracts wild honey) - Fevronia, and she lives in the village of Laskovo in Ryazan land. He found a girl, and she agreed to heal Peter, and as payment for the healing took from him a promise to marry her. But, having recovered, he did not keep his word, and the disease returned. Fevronia again came to the rescue, and the repentant Peter played a wedding with her.

They lived in perfect harmony, in love and harmony. Peter eventually inherited the princely title from his brother. At first, the boyars disliked Fevronia and even demanded that the prince make a choice - either she or the reign. Then Peter equipped ships and left Murom together with his princess. And on the lands left by him, troubles began, and the same boyars began to ask the prince and the princess to return. Peter and Fevronia ruled "with justice and meekness", did alms and spared no riches for the inhabitants of their city. In old age, both Peter and Fevronia took monastic vows under the name of David and Euphrosyne, and died on the same day, each in his own cell. They were buried in different cloisters, but miraculously the couple were reunited.

Saints Peter and Fevronia are venerated on June 25 according to the old style or on July 8 according to the new style. The exact period of the life of Peter and Fevronia has not been established - either the XI or the XIV century.

Francesco I and Bianca Cappello

This Italian Renaissance couple is famous mainly for their long history of love. Francesco of the Medici family was born in 1541 and at the age of 23 received the title of Duke of Tuscany.

Bianca was a representative of a noble Venetian family, grew up in her stepmother's house and once ran away from home with a certain Pietro Bonaventuri, whom she later married. She and her husband had to hide from Bianca's angry father in Florence, where she met Duke Francesco I. He immediately flared up with passion for the Venetian, she reciprocated. True, she remained married, and the duke, for political reasons, had to marry the daughter of the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, John of Austria, a painful woman prone to melancholy, who gave birth to eight children during the marriage.

There were no children from the connection between Bianca and Francesco, although the calculating favorite really wanted to give birth to an heir to the duke - only girls were born to Joanna. It is believed that she settled three pregnant women in her house and once presented one of the newborn boys as her own son. The deception was revealed, a scandal erupted, and Bianca lost even more in public opinion, which was not already favored by the duke's mistress. After the sudden death of Joanna - it was rumored that it was not without the participation of Bianca - the couple finally got married, Bianca's husband had already died by that time.

At first, three months after the death of the Duchess, Francesco and Bianca played a secret wedding, and a few months later the marriage was announced publicly. Bianca Cappello was not loved in Tuscany, she had the nickname "The Witch". On October 17, 1587, while visiting the duke's brother, Ferdinando, in Poggio a Caiano, Francesco and Bianca died suddenly. The cause of death was cited as malaria, but rumors circulated that the couple had been poisoned by Ferdinando. However, there was another version - that the "witch" Bianca wanted to poison her brother-in-law, but by mistake this food got to her and her husband.

Francesco I was buried in the family crypt, while Bianca's resting place remained unknown.

Stefan Zweig and Charlotte Altmann

Stefan Zweig was born in 1881 in Austria, his father was the owner of a textile factory. Zweig entered the University of Vienna, where he studied philosophy, during the same period he began to publish his first works. During his writing career, he created many novels, short stories, plays and poems, his innovative contribution to literature was recognized and appreciated by such contemporaries as Remarque, Freud, Hesse, Gorky, Wells - and many others.

Frederick Maria von Winternitz became Zweig's first wife; he had been married to her for 18 years. After the divorce, Zweig married his secretary Charlotte Altmann. It happened in 1939. Charlotte gave the writer a second youth, but not for long. Immediately after Hitler came to power, Zweig and his wife emigrated to England, then went to the New World, eventually staying in the town of Petropolis in the state of Rio de Janeiro.

The spouses were very upset about what was happening in the world. Reflections on the ongoing catastrophe are devoted to Zweig's memoirs entitled "Yesterday's World", in the new world Zweig was a constant wanderer and felt like a stranger. On February 22, 1942, the Zweig couple took a lethal dose of barbiturates. They were found on the bed holding hands. Farewell letters lay on the writing table nearby.

Amedeo Modigliani and Jeanne Hébuterne

Amedeo Modigliani, an Italian whose creative path was inextricably linked with Paris, became one of the most prominent masters of the European avant-garde. Together with Maurice Utrillo, Pablo Picasso, Max Jacob, he represented the bohemia of Montmartre at the beginning of the 20th century. In 1910, he began a passionate but short-lived romance with the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova.

Modigliani met Jeanne Hébuterne in 1917. She worked as a model and studied painting herself. Very soon, a love relationship arose between them. Calm, gentle, delicate, Jeanne became the main model for the artist; not less than twenty-five of his works are dedicated to her.

In 1918, the daughter of Modigliani and Jeanne was born. On January 24, 1920, at the age of 35, Modigliani died of tuberculosis, a disease that had developed over the years, since childhood. Distraught with grief, Jeanne, who was nine months pregnant, committed suicide by jumping out of a fifth-floor window the next day.

One of those couples who did not part even in the face of death - Dolores and Trent Vinsteads, who lived together for 64 years - until the day of their death.