The tale of Pyramus and Thisbe is one of lovers, sourced from Greek mythology. The oldest version of the story was penned by Ovid in his poem in fifteen books, Metamorphoses, from 8 AD. (Shakespeare likely read Arthur Golding’s English translation, which was published in 1567.) In summary, Pyramus and Thisbe are two youths who desire to be married, but are forbidden by their parents, communicating with each other only through a “chink” in the wall between their neighboring houses. Upon deciding to run away together, misunderstanding leads Pyramus to think Thisbe was killed by a Lioness, and Pyramus kills himself; seeing Pyramus’s body, Thisbe kills herself with his same dagger. The red blood stains the white mulberries red, creating the titular “metamorphoses”, and the lovers’ parents grow sympathetic in their death.
Within Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the “rude mechanicals”, a group of amateur actors in Athens, rehearse and perform a dramatization of the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe for the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta. The character of Peter Quince writes and performs the prologue, Snug plays the lion, Nick Bottom plays Pyramus, Francis Flute plays Thisbe, Tom Snout plays the separating wall, and Robin Starveling plays Moonshine.
In understanding the inclusion of the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, critics usually draw parallels between the central conflict of Dream and the tale; Hermia and Lysander’s thwarted love at the hands of a parental figure prompting their attempt to flee to the woods parallels the efforts of Pyramus and Thisbe to run in the middle of the night together. Critics note the similar themes of “lunacy in the brain of the youth” and “gentle satire on the pangs of romantic love” between the central plot of Dream and that of Pyramus and Thisbe. Notably, Pyramus and Thisbe’s ending is definitively tragic, resulting in their deaths, while the four lovers of Dream find themselves alive past the conflicts in trying to run away. The cavern between these two endings, the one treated comically and the other tragically, leads some critics, such as Paul Olson, to suggest that the mechanicals play serves as a counterpoint, “the potential tragedy of the lovers in the woods,” and reminds of the “headie force of frentick love.”
An excerpt from Chapter 2: Eight Brief Tales of Lovers in Edith Hamilton’s Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes, retelling the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe…
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“PYRAMUS AND THISBE This story is found only in Ovid. It is quite characteristic of him at his best: well-told; several rhetorical monologues; a little essay on Love by the way. ONCE upon a time the deep red berries of the mulberry tree were white as snow. The change in color came about strangely and sadly. The death of two young lovers was the cause. Pyramus and Thisbe, he the most beautiful youth and she the loveliest maiden of all the East, lived. in Babylon, the city of Queen Semiramis, in houses so close together that one wall was common to both. Growing up thus side by side, they learned to love each other. They longed to marry, but their parents forbade. Love, however, cannot be forbidden. The more that Harne is covered up, the hotter it bums. Also, love can always find a way. It was impossible that these two whose hearts were on fire should be kept apart. In the wall both houses shared there was a little chink. No one before had noticed it, but there is nothing a lover does not notice. Our two young people discovered it and through it they were able to whisper sweetly back and forth, Thisbe on one side, Pyramus on the other. The hateful wall that separated them had become their means of reaching each other. “But for you we could touch, kiss,” they would say. “But at least you let us speak together. You give a passage for loving words to reach loving ears. We are not ungrateful.” So they would talk, and as night came on and they must part, each would press on the wall kisses that could not go through to the lips on the other side. Every morning when the dawn had put out the stars, and the sun’s rays had dried the hoarfrost on the grass, they would steal to the crack and, standing there, now utter words of burning love and now lament their hard fate, but always in softest whispers. Finally a day came when they could endure no longer. They decided that that very night they would try to slip away and steal out through the city into the open country where at last they could be together in freedom. They agreed to meet at a well-known place, the Tomb of Ninus, under a tree there, a tall mulberry full of snow-white berries, near which a cool spring bubbled up. The plan pleased them and it seemed to them the day would never end. At last the sun sank into the sea and night arose. In the darkness Thisbe crept out and made her way in all secrecy to the tomb. Pyramus had not come; still she waited for him, her love making her bold. But of a sudden she saw by the light of the moon a lioness. The fierce beast had made a kill; her jaws were bloody and she was coming to slake her thirst in the spring. She was still far enough away for Thisbe to escape, but as she fled she dropped her cloak. The lioness came upon it on her way back to her lair and she mouthed it and tore it before disappearing into the woods. That is what Pyramus saw when he appeared a few minutes later. Before him lay the bloodstained shreds of the cloak and clear in the dust were the tracks of the lioness. The conclusion was inevitable. He never doubted that he knew all. Thisbe was dead. He had let his love, a tender maiden, come alone to a place full of danger, and not been there first to protect her. “It is I who killed you,” he said. He lifted up from the trampled dust what was left of the cloak and kissing it again and again carried it to the mulberry tree. “Now,” he said, “you shall drink my blood too.” He drew his sword and plunged it into his side. The blood spurted up over the berries and dye them a dark red. Thisbe, although terrified of the lioness, was still more afraid to fail her lover. She ventured to go back to the tree of the tryst, the mulberry with the shining white fruit. She could not find it. A tree was there, but not one gleam of white was on the branches. As she stared at it, something moved on the ground beneath. She started back shuddering. But in a moment, peering through the shadows, she saw what was there. It was Pyramus, bathed in blood and dying. She Hew to him and threw her arms around him. She kissed his cold lips and begged him to look at her, to speak to her. “It is I, your Thisbe, your dearest,” she cried to him. At the sound of her name he opened his heavy eyes for one look. Then death closed them. She saw his sword fallen from his hand and beside it her cloak stained and tom. She understood all. “Your own hand killed you,” she said, “and your love for me. I too can be brave. I too can love. Only death would have had the power to separate us. It shall not have that power now.” She plunged into her heart the sword that was still wet with his life’s blood. The gods were pitiful at the end, and the lovers’ parents too. The deep red fruit of the mulberry is the everlasting memorial of these true lovers, and one urn holds the ashes of the two whom not even death could part.” |
