WHEN TWO BECOME ONE
Written by: Amanda Smith
Sorbet picks some of our favorite power couples from literature, mythology, pop culture and more. After all, what's a little drama, goddess-infidelity and cross-country murder sprees between lovers?
GREATES LOVERS IN MYTHOLOGY: PARIS & HELEN OF TROY EST. AROUND 1200BC
When Helen of Troy, goddess (figuratively and literally) and wife to King Menelaus of Sparta, eloped with Prince Paris of Troy, their love would spark the legendary Trojan War. A seismic event in Greek mythology, Paris and Helen’s love story has inspired countless novels, plays, and films since, thanks to the enduringly sexy theme of forbidden love and the slightly trashier one of dudes fighting over a hot chick.
See also: Orpheus and Eurydice, Eros and Psyche, Aeneas and DIdo, Layla and Majnun
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GREATES LOVERS IN FICTION: ROMEO AND JULIET EST. 1594
There’s no love story as famously fated and tragic as Romeo and Juliet. Sure, the play had been around since about 1594, but the iconic Shakespearean pathos truly entered pop culture in 1996 when the Montague Leonardo DiCaprio and Capulet Claire Danes fell in love through a fish tank.
Meeting and marrying within 24 hours, when Romeo is exiled for the murder of her cousin, Tybalt, Juliet cooks up a plan with Friar Laurence to fake her own death so the two can escape and be together. Believing her to be dead, Romeo swallows poison and Juliet wakes to find him dead beside her. Devastated, she stabs herself with Romeo’s dagger. It sounds like a bummer, and Shakespeare himself noted, “For never was a story of more woe than this of Juliet and her Romeo,” but it remains the lovers’ benchmark.
See also: Tristan and Isolde, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy, Catherine and Heathcliff, Bella Swan and Edward Cullen
GREATES LOVERS IN INFAMY: BONNIE AND CLYDE EST. 1930
The inspo for the famous phrase “partners in crime”, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow became (and remain) as famous for their string of crimes during the Great Depression as they are for being a killer couple. They used their bravado, sexuality and charisma to pull off robberies, heists, and murders in the early 1930s to become public enemy number one in the US. But (whisper it) even their most heinous crimes retain an air of romanticism thanks to their reputations as anti-establishment sex symbols. Adding to their lustful legend, the whole time they were on the run, Bonnie was legally married to another man. Baller.
See also: Mark Antony and Cleopatra, Napoleon and Josephine, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas
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GREATES LOVERS IN LITERATURE: SYLVIA PLATH AND TED HUGHES EST. 1956
The tragic tale of poets Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes was immortalized in her 1963 semi-autobiographical novel, The Bell Jar. Published after Plath’s suicide, a dark relationship and mental health issues were revealed, with Plath tackling wider issues such as women’s roles and social identity.
Meeting at a party in Cambridge, England in February 1956, the pair married four months later and went on to have two children. Their relationship was tumultuous with allegations of domestic abuse, but Plath would write to her mother that “I really am convinced he is the only person in the world I could ever love.”
See also: Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway and Martha Gellhorn
GREATES LOVERS IN CELEBRITY: POSH AND BECKS EST. 1997
Posh and Becks, aka Victoria and David Beckham are the celebrity couple mega-success story, having recently celebrated 25 years together. Still as sexy and spicy as ever, the Beckhams have proved tabloid headlines wrong time and time again by enduring where others have fallen by the wayside.
A brand as much as a couple, although they didn’t invent the concept of the celebrity and the sports icon (hello, Marilyn Monroe and Joe DiMaggio), they perfected it to the tune of $450 million.
See also: Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, Matt Bomer and Simon Halls
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GREATES LOVERS IN POP CULTURE: DOMINIC TORETTO AND LETTY ORTIZ EST. 1997
When a love story spans 10 (10!!!!) franchise installments, you can do nothing but slow clap in admiration and awe. Let’s face it, even Han and Leia only managed five (boo to Kylo Ren!).
Dom (Vin Diesel) and Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) first appear in 2001’s The Fast and the Furious, reconnecting as adults after a childhood spent living around the corner from one another. Forming the core of the Toretto gang, sorry, family, through a shared love of street racing, there follows a grand love saga involving global crime sprees, car crashes, amnesia, Dom having a baby with Thor’s wife and much more, to fully epitomize a true ‘ride or die’ romance.
See also: Han Solo and Princess Leia, Johnny Castle and Baby, Sandy and Danny, Brittany and Santana, Alabama Whitman and Clarence Worley
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