The love story of
Pyramus and Thisbe, is a part of
Roman mythologyRoman mythology, or Latin mythology, refers to the mythological beliefs of the Italic people inhabiting the region of Latium and its main city, Ancient Rome. It can be considered as having two parts; One part, largely later and literary, consists of borrowings from Greek mythology...
, and is also a sentimental romance.
The tale is told by
OvidPublius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who wrote about love, seduction, and mythological transformation....
in his
MetamorphosesThe Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid is a narrative poem in fifteen books that describes the creation and history of the world. Completed in 8 AD, it has remained one of the most popular works of mythology, being the Classical work best known to medieval writers and thus having a great deal of...
.
Romeo and Juliet reflect the plot of this Roman myth. In the Ovidian version, Pyramus and Thisbe is the story of two lovers in the city of Babylon in the Middle East who occupy connected houses, forbidden by their parents to be wed, because of their parents' rivalry.
The love story of
Pyramus and Thisbe, is a part of
Roman mythologyRoman mythology, or Latin mythology, refers to the mythological beliefs of the Italic people inhabiting the region of Latium and its main city, Ancient Rome. It can be considered as having two parts; One part, largely later and literary, consists of borrowings from Greek mythology...
, and is also a sentimental romance.
The tale is told by
OvidPublius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who wrote about love, seduction, and mythological transformation....
in his
MetamorphosesThe Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid is a narrative poem in fifteen books that describes the creation and history of the world. Completed in 8 AD, it has remained one of the most popular works of mythology, being the Classical work best known to medieval writers and thus having a great deal of...
.
Plot
Romeo and Juliet reflect the plot of this Roman myth. In the Ovidian version, Pyramus and Thisbe is the story of two lovers in the city of Babylon in the Middle East who occupy connected houses, forbidden by their parents to be wed, because of their parents' rivalry. Through a crack in one of the walls, they whisper their love for each other. Frustrated by their pitiable state, they arrange to meet near at Ninus' tomb under a mulberry tree and state their feelings for each other. Thisbe arrived first, but upon seeing a lioness with a mouth bloody from a recent kill, she fled, leaving behind her veil. The lioness drank from a nearby fountain, then by chance mutilated the veil Thisbe had left behind. When Pyramus arrived, he was horrified at the sight of Thisbe's veil, assuming that a fierce beast had killed her. Pyramus kills himself, violently thrusting a sword into his groin, and in turn splashing blood on the white mulberry leaves. It is Pyramus' blood that stains the white mulberry fruits, turning them dark. Thisbe returned, eager to tell Pyramus what had happened to her, but she found Pyramus' dead body under the shade of the mulberry tree. Thisbe, after a brief period of mourning, stabbed herself with the same sword. In the end, the gods listen to Thisbe's lament, and forever change the color of the mulberry fruits into the stained color to honor the forbidden love.
Ovid's version
The following is a paraphrase of Ovid by
Thomas BulfinchThomas Bulfinch was an American writer, born in Newton, Massachusetts. Bulfinch belonged to a well educated Bostonian merchant family of modest means. His father was Charles Bulfinch, the architect of the Massachusetts State House in Boston and parts of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C....
(
The Age of Fable, second edition, 1856):
Analysis
Roman versions of mythological events are riddled with gratuitous violence, often to the point of absurdity. In
Pyramus and Thisbe however, Ovid actually uses the violence to his own advantage, allying it with the dark tone of the overall story. When Pyramus kills himself the amount of pain that he goes through contains more than one purpose. Ovid is showing that Pyramus upholds the ideals of a common Roman man, that any Roman would do such an act in this manner for the woman he loves. By contrast, Thisbe's death is described in much less detail to portray the end of the darkness and the conclusion of the analysis.
Adaptations
The story of
Pyramus and Thisbe appears in
Giovanni BoccaccioGiovanni Boccaccio was an Italian author and poet, a friend, student, and correspondent of Petrarch, an important Renaissance humanist and the author of a number of notable works including the Decameron, On Famous Women, and his poetry in the Italian vernacular...
's
On Famous Women as biography number twelve (sometimes thirteen) and in his Decameron, in the fifth story on the seventh day, where a desperate housewife falls in love with her neighbor, and communicates with him through a crack in the wall, attracting his attention by dropping pieces of stone and straw through the crack.
Geoffrey ChaucerGeoffrey Chaucer was an English author, poet, philosopher, bureaucrat, courtier and diplomat. Although he wrote many works, he is best remembered for his unfinished frame narrative The Canterbury Tales...
was among the first to tell the story in
EnglishEnglish is a West Germanic language that developed in England during the Anglo-Saxon era. As a result of the military, economic, scientific, political, and cultural influence of the British Empire during the 18th, 19th, and early 20th centuries, and of the United States since the mid 20th century,...
with his
The Legend of Good WomenThe Legend of Good Women is a poem in the form of a dream vision by Geoffrey Chaucer.The poem is the third longest of Chaucer’s works, after The Canterbury Tales and Troilus and Criseyde and is possibly the first significant work in English to use the iambic pentameter or decasyllabic couplets...
. The "Pyramus and Thisbe" plot appears twice in
ShakespeareWilliam Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's works. The plot of
Romeo and JulietRomeo and Juliet is a tragedy written early in the career of playwright William Shakespeare about two young "star-cross'd lovers" whose untimely deaths ultimately unite their feuding families. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet and Macbeth, is...
may draw either from Ovid's Latin retelling in the
Metamorphoses, or from
GoldingArthur Golding was an English translator.He was the son of Jonathon Golding of Belchamp St Paul and Halsted, Essex, an auditor of the Exchequer, and was probably born in London. His half-sister, Margaret, married John de Vere, 16th Earl of Oxford. By 1549 Arthur was in the service of Edward...
's 1567 translation of that work. A comic recapitulation appears in the play
A Midsummer Night's DreamA Midsummer Night's Dream is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare. It was suggested by "The Knight's Tale" from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales and written around 1594 to 1596...
(Act V, sc 1), enacted by a group of "
mechanicalsA mechanical is any of six characters in A Midsummer Night's Dream who perform the play-within-a-play Pyramus and Thisbe. Named for their occupations as skilled manual laborers, they are a group of amateur actors from around Athens, looking to make names for themselves by having their production...
".
Luis de GóngoraLuis de Góngora y Argote was a Spanish Baroque lyric poet. Góngora and his lifelong rival, Francisco de Quevedo, were the most prominent Spanish poets of their age. His style is characterized by what was called culteranismo, also known as Gongorism...
wrote his
Fábula de Píramo y Tisbe in 1618.
Théophile de ViauThéophile de Viau was a French baroque poet and dramatist.In 1612the twenty two year old Viau joined up with Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac, around fifteen at the time, whom he met in Angoulême...
(1590 - 1626) wrote his
Les amours tragiques de Pyrame et Thisbée, a tragedy in five acts (1621).
François FRANCOEURFrançois Francoeur was a French violinist and composer.-Biography:He was born in Paris, the son of Joseph Francoeur, a basse de violon player and member of the 24 violons du roy. Francoeur was instructed in music by his father and joined the Académie Royale de Musique as a violinist at age 15...
et
François REBELFrançois Rebel was a French composer of the Baroque era. Born in Paris, the son of the leading composer Jean-Féry Rebel, he was a child prodigy who became a violinist in the orchestra of the Paris Opera at the age of 13...
composed
Pirame et Thisbée, a liric tragedy in 5 acts and a prologue,libretto by Jean-Louis-Ignace de la Serre, Sieur de l'Anglade (1662 - 1756), played at the Académie royale de musique, on October 17, 1726. The story was adapted by
John Frederick LampeJohn Frederick Lampe was a musician.He was born in Saxony, but came to England in 1724 and played the bassoon in opera houses. His wife, Isabella Lampe, was sister-in-law to the composer Thomas Arne with whom Lampe collaborated on a number of concert seasons...
as a "Mock Opera" in 1745, containing a singing "Wall" which was described as "the most musical partition that was ever heard." In 1768 in
ViennaVienna is the capital of the Republic of Austria and also one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.7 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre. It is the 10th largest city by...
, Johann Adolf Hasse composed a serious opera on the tale ,
Piramo e TisbePiramo e Tisbe is an opera in two acts, described by its composer as an intermezzo tragico, by Johann Adolf Hasse to a libretto by Marco Coltellini. It was first performed in the autumn of 1768 near Vienna....
.
Edmond Rostand adapted the tale from
Romeo and Juliet, making the fathers of the lovers conspire to bring their children together by pretending to forbid their love in
Les Romanesques. Rostand's play, translated into English as
The Romancers was the basis for the musical
The FantasticksThe Fantasticks is a 1960 musical with music by Harvey Schmidt and lyrics by Tom Jones. It was produced by Lore Noto. It tells an allegorical story, loosely based on the play "The Romancers" by Edmond Rostand , concerning two neighboring fathers who put up a wall between their houses to ensure...
. The musical
West Side StoryWest Side Story is an American musical with a book by Arthur Laurents, music by Leonard Bernstein, and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The musical's plot is based on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet....
, based on
Romeo and Juliet, and
The Fantasticks, thus have the same ultimate source.
Louisa May AlcottLouisa May Alcott was an American novelist. She is best known for the novel Little Women, written and set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts and published in 1868...
, author of
Little WomenLittle Women is a novel by American author Louisa May Alcott . Written and set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts, it was published in two parts in 1868 and 1869...
, also wrote a children's version of "Pyramus and Thisbe" in her short story "A Hole in the Wall".
Allusions
Thisbe "of the many doves" is mentioned as a city in
BoeotiaBoeotia, also spelled Beotia and Bœotia , formerly Cadmeis, was a region of ancient Greece, north of the eastern part of the Gulf of Corinth. It was bounded on the south by Megaris and the Kithairon mountain range that forms a natural barrier with Attica, on the north by Opuntian Locris and the...
in the
Catalogue of ShipsThe Catalogue of Ships is a passage in Book 2 of Homer's Iliad , which lists the contingents of the Achaean army that sailed to Troy...
, from
IliadThe Iliad is an epic poem recounting significant events during a portion of the final year of the Trojan War — the Greek siege of the city of Ilion — hence the title...
2.502.
PausaniasPausanias was a Greek traveller and geographer of the 2nd century AD, who lived in the times of Hadrian, Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius. He is famous for his Description of Greece , a lengthy work that describes ancient Greece from firsthand observations, and is a crucial link between...
mentions a Boeotian
nymphA nymph in Greek mythology is a female spirit typically associated with a particular location or landform. Other nymphs, always in the shape of young nubile maidens, were part of the retinue of a god, such as Dionysus, Hermes, or Pan, or a goddess, generally Artemis. Nymphs were the frequent target...
named Thisbe for whom the city is named (9.32.2.45).
A play adaptation of the myth holds a prominent position in the play "
A Midsummer Night's DreamA Midsummer Night's Dream is a romantic comedy by William Shakespeare. It was suggested by "The Knight's Tale" from Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales and written around 1594 to 1596...
". The myth is to be played out by a group of commoners for a wedding.
There is a chapter entitled "Pyramus and Thisbe" in
the Count of Monte CristoThe Count of Monte Cristo is an adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas, père. It is often considered to be, along with The Three Musketeers, Dumas' most popular work. The writing of the work was completed in 1844...
, alluding to the secret romance between Maximillian Morrel and Valentine de Villefort.
The romance between Emil and Marie in the book
O Pioneers!O Pioneers! is a 1913 novel by American author Willa Cather. It was written in part when Cather was living in Cherry Valley, New York with Isabelle McClung and was completed at the McClungs' home in Pittsburgh.-Plot introduction:...
and their deaths (especially) is strikingly similar to Pyramus and Thisbe, with clear evidence on page 173 where "the white mulberries...were covered with a dark stain," directly corresponding to Ovid:
nam color in pomo est.
Secondary sources
Bulfinch, Thomas (1856).
The Age of Fable; Or, Stories of Gods and Heroes (2nd ed.).
External links