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A romantic message etched into the window pane of a castle a 100 years ago has finally been deciphered.
According to the Daily Mail, the message -- "essere amato amando" -- had mystified visitors to the historic Penrhyn Castle in North Wales for decades. Experts dismissed the message as nothing but jumbled Latin.
A closer look, however, revealed a story of forbidden love.
In October 2012, native Italian speaker Resi Tomat joined the castle staff, the Telegraph reported. Tomat figured out that in Italian, the inscription meant "to be loved while loving."
Startled, historians dug deeper. More than 100 years ago, Lady Alice Douglas-Pennant -- known locally as "Lady Alice" -- had occupied the room. As the story went, she was banished to the castle tower when her wealthy industrialist father found out she had fallen in love with a gardener.
House steward Clare Turgoose told the BBC:
"It was not just on that the daughter of a lord should fraternize with an employee. It was a Downton Abbey situation where the two just don't mingle socially."
According to the news source, the note would have been etched when she was teenager, probably around 1880. Eventually, she left the confines of the castle and worked as an artist in London until her death at age 76.
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