Letters
The correspondence itself
Not every love left paper.
These did.
Archaic Greece · Mytilene
Equal to the Gods
Sappho · The unnamed beloved
φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θέοισιν ἔμμεν᾽ ὤνηρ, ὄττις ἐνάντιός τοι ἰσδάνει καὶ πλάσιον ἆδυ φωνεί- σας ὐπακούει καὶ γελαίσας ἰμέροεν, τό μ᾽ ἦ μὰν καρδίαν ἐν στήθεσιν ἐπτόαισεν
Sangam Tamilakam · Madurai region
Red Earth and Pouring Rain
Kapilar · The talaivi (heroine)
யாயும் ஞாயும் யாரா கியரோ எந்தையும் நுந்தையும் எம்முறைக் கேளிர் யானும் நீயும் எவ்வழி யறிதும் செம்புலப் பெயனீர் போல அன்புடை நெஞ்சம் தாம் கலந்தனவே
High Roman Empire · Comum (Como)
The Empty Threshold
Pliny the Younger (Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus) · Calpurnia
You kindly tell me my absence very sensibly affects you, and that your only consolation is in conversing with my works, which you frequently substitute in my stead. I am glad that you miss me; I am glad that you find som…
Taifa-period al-Andalus · Córdoba
I Go My Way with Pride
Wallāda bint al-Mustakfī · Ibn Zaydūn
I am, by God, made for high things. I walk my own walk, and I am proud. I give my cheek to the one who loves me. I give my kiss to the one who wants it.
Heian Japan · Heian-kyō (Kyoto)
The Woman in the Deutzia Month
Izumi Shikibu · Prince Atsumichi
Many months had passed in lamenting the World, more shadowy than a dream. Already the tenth day of the Deutzia month was over. A deeper shade lay under the trees and the grass on the embankment was greener.
Twelfth-century Paris · Paris
Héloïse Will Not Be a Plot
Peter Abelard · Héloïse d’Argenteuil
To her master, or rather father; husband, or rather brother; his handmaid, or rather daughter; his wife, or rather sister, to Abelard, Héloïse. The salutation is already an argument. Every title he might prefer is named,…
New Spain · Mexico City
To Her Vicereine, and to Learning
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz · María Luisa Manrique de Lara y Gonzaga, Countess of Paredes
No estudio para escribir, ni menos para enseñar (que fuera en mí desmedida soberbia), sino sólo para ver si estudiando ignoro menos.
Teplitz, July 1812 · Teplitz (Teplice)
Unsterbliche Geliebte
Ludwig van Beethoven · the Immortal Beloved
Mein Engel, mein alles, mein Ich. …kannst du es ändern, daß du nicht ganz mein, ich nicht ganz dein bist.
England and Rome, 1819 to 1821 · Hampstead
Two Luxuries
John Keats · Fanny Brawne
I have two luxuries to brood over in my walks, your Loveliness and the hour of my death. O that I could have possession of them both in the same minute.
London, 1845 to 1846 · 50 Wimpole Street
Let Me Count the Ways
Elizabeth Barrett · Robert Browning
I love your verses with all my heart, dear Miss Barrett, and this is no off-hand complimentary letter that I shall write… I do, as I say, love these books with all my heart, and I love you too.
Amherst, mid-nineteenth century · Amherst
A Hedge Away
Emily Dickinson · Susan Huntington Gilbert Dickinson
One Sister have I in our house , And one a hedge away.
Washington, from 1865 · Washington
Dear Pete
Walt Whitman · Peter Doyle
My love for you is indestructible, and since that night and morning has returned more than before. Dear Pete, dear son, my darling boy…
Washington, July 1861 · Camp Clark, Washington
If I Do Not Return
Sullivan Ballou · Sarah Ballou
The widely printed letter says what a husband under orders needed Sarah to have if he did not come back: that his love for her was deathless, and that a love of country was nevertheless carrying him toward the field. We …
Halifax, 1832 to 1840 · Shibden Hall, Halifax
Crypthand
Anne Lister · Ann Walker
Years before Walker, she writes that she loves and only loves the fairer sex, and that her heart revolts from any love but theirs. The line is a thesis she would spend the rest of her life practicing on particular women,…
Andes and Pacific, 1822 to 1856 · Quito
Libertadora del Libertador
Manuela Sáenz · Simón Bolívar
He called her the Liberator's liberator. We have that naming. We do not have, and will not invent, a bedroom letter to stand in for the night she got him through a window.
Kimberley, 1897 to 1898 · Kimberley
Special Licence
Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje · Elizabeth Nomthetho M'belle
The surviving courtship is described by biographers as rocky: family resistance on both sides, a Motswana man, an Mfengu woman, a town watching. We will not ventriloquize their pages. The public fact is the licence of 25…
Italian campaign, 1796 · Milan
From the Italian Campaign
Napoleon Bonaparte · Joséphine (Rose de Beauharnais)
Je n'ai pas passé un jour sans t'aimer ; je n'ai pas passé une nuit sans te serrer dans mes bras ; je n'ai pas pris une tasse de thé sans maudire la gloire et l'ambition qui me tiennent éloigné de l'âme de ma vie.
Gupta-period India · Rāmagiri (associated with Ramtek)
The Cloud Messenger
The yakṣa · The yakṣa’s wife
Go. When you see her, thinner, perhaps, the months counted on her fingers, tell her that I am here, that I live, that I have given you our nights to carry. Do not frighten her with the whole of my wasting. Give her a sig…
England · Chicksands Priory
If you love me you will
Dorothy Osborne · William Temple
You ask my thoughts but at one hour; you will think me bountiful, I hope, when I shall tell you that I know no hour when you have them not. No, in earnest, my very dreams are yours, and I have got such a habit of thinkin…
Qing China, late 18th century · Suzhou
Six Records
Shen Fu · Chen Yun
余笑谓芸曰：卿非解人。
Occitania, late 12th century · Die
A chantar m'er
Comtessa de Dia
A chantar m'er de so qu'eu no volria, tant me rancur de lui cui sui amia; car eu l'am mais que nuilla ren que sia.
Song China, early 12th century · Zhangqiu
Yi Jian Mei
Li Qingzhao · Zhao Mingcheng
此情无计可消除，才下眉头，却上心头。
Massachusetts and Philadelphia · Braintree
Remember the ladies
Abigail Adams · John Adams
I long to hear that you have declared an independancy—and by the way in the new Code of Laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make I desire you would Remember the Ladies, and be more generous and favourabl…