InGreek mythology,Pyramus and Thisbe (Ancient Greek:Πύραμος καὶ Θίσβη,romanized: Púramos kaì Thísbē) are a pair of ill-fated lovers fromBabylon, whose story is best known fromOvid's narrative poemMetamorphoses. The tragic myth has been retold by many authors.
Pyramus and Thisbe's parents, driven by rivalry, forbade their union, but they communicated through a crack in the wall between their houses. They planned to meet under amulberry tree, but a series of tragic misunderstandings led to their deaths: Thisbe fled from a lioness, leaving her cloak behind, which Pyramus found and mistook as evidence of her death. Believing Thisbe was killed by the lioness, Pyramus died by suicide, staining the mulberry fruits with his blood. Thisbe, upon finding Pyramus dead, also killed herself. The gods changed the color of the mulberry fruits to honor their forbidden love.
Ovid's version is the oldest surviving account, but the story is likely to have originated from earlier myths inCilicia. The tale has been adapted in various forms, inspiring works such as Shakespeare'sRomeo and Juliet andA Midsummer Night's Dream, as well as modern adaptations in literature, opera, and popular culture. The story is depicted in works of art from ancientRoman mosaics toRenaissance paintings.
Pyramus and Thisbe are two lovers in the city ofBabylon who occupy connected houses. Their respective parents, driven by rivalry, forbid them to wed. Through a crack in one of the walls they whisper their love for each other. They arrange to meet near a tomb under amulberry tree and state their feelings for each other. Thisbe arrives first, but upon seeing a lioness with a bloody mouth from a recent kill, she flees, leaving behind her cloak. When Pyramus arrives, he is horrified at the sight of Thisbe's cloak: the lioness had torn it and left traces of blood behind, as well as its tracks. Assuming that a wild beast had killed her, Pyramus kills himself, falling on his sword, a typical Babylonian way to commit suicide, and in turn splashing blood on the white mulberry leaves. Pyramus' blood stains the white mulberry fruits, turning them dark. Thisbe returns, eager to tell Pyramus what had happened to her, but she finds Pyramus' dead body under the shade of the mulberry tree. Thisbe, after praying to their parents and the gods to have them buried together and a brief period of mourning, stabs 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 forbidden love. Her wish to be buried together with Pyramus is also granted; the lovers' ashes are preserved in one urn. Pyramus and Thisbe are models of love that is faithful to the very end.
Ovid's is the oldest surviving version of the story, published in 8 AD, but he adapted an existingaetiological myth. While in Ovid's telling Pyramus and Thisbe lived inBabylon, andCtesias had placed the tomb of his imagined kingNinus near that city, the myth probably originated inCilicia (part of Ninus'Babylonian empire) as Pyramos is the historical Greek name of the localCeyhan River. The metamorphosis in the primary story involves Pyramus changing into this river and Thisbe into a nearby spring. A 2nd-century mosaic unearthed nearNea Paphos onCyprus depicts this older version of the myth.[1] This alternative version also survives in theprogymnasmata, a work byNicolaus Sophista, a Greek sophist and rhetor who lived during the fifth century AD.[2][3]
Ovid's rendition of the tale seems to have been inspired by an earlier genre of Greek tragic love stories in which a woman is killed accidentally or indirectly by a man, and following that he dies or commits suicide in grief; such examples includeAnthippe and Cichyrus andCyanippus andLeucone.[4]
The story ofPyramus and Thisbe appears inGiovanni Boccaccio'sOn Famous Women as biography number twelve (sometimes thirteen)[5] and in hisDecameron, 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.
In the 1380s,Geoffrey Chaucer, in hisThe Legend of Good Women, andJohn Gower, in hisConfessio Amantis, were the first to tell the story inEnglish. Gower altered the story somewhat into acautionary tale. John Metham'sAmoryus and Cleopes (1449) is another early English adaptation.
The tragedy ofRomeo and Juliet ultimately sprang from Ovid's story. Here thestar-crossed lovers cannot be together because Juliet has been engaged by her parents to another man and the two families hold an ancient grudge. As in Pyramus and Thisbe, the mistaken belief in one lover's death leads to consecutive suicides. The earliest version ofRomeo and Juliet was published in 1476 byMasuccio Salernitano, while it mostly obtained its present form when written down in 1524 byLuigi da Porto. Salernitano and Da Porto both are thought to have been inspired by Ovid and Boccaccio's writing.[6]Shakespeare's most famous 1590s adaptation is a dramatization ofArthur Brooke's 1562 poemThe Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet, itself a translation of a French translation of Da Porto's novella.[7][8]
In Shakespeare'sA Midsummer Night's Dream (Act V, sc 1), a comedy written in the 1590s, a group of "mechanicals" enact the story of "Pyramus and Thisbe". Their production is crude and, for the most part, badly done until the final monologues ofNick Bottom, as Pyramus andFrancis Flute, as Thisbe. The theme of forbidden love is also present in the main plot ofA Midsummer Night's Dream (albeit in a less tragic and dark representation) in that a girl,Hermia, is not able to marry the man she loves,Lysander, because her fatherEgeus despises him and wishes for her to marryDemetrius, and meanwhile Hermia and Lysander are confident thatHelena is in love with Demetrius.
The Beatles performed a humorous performance of "Pyramus and Thisbe" on the 1964 television specialAround the Beatles. Primarily based around William Shakespeare's adaptation, the performance featuredPaul McCartney as Pyramus,John Lennon as his lover Thisbe,George Harrison as Moonshine, andRingo Starr as Lion, withTrevor Peacock in the role of Quince.
Spanish poetLuis de Góngora wrote aFábula de Píramo y Tisbe in 1618, while French poetThéophile de Viau wroteLes amours tragiques de Pyrame et Thisbée, a tragedy in five acts, in 1621.
In 1718Giuseppe Antonio Brescianello wrote his only opera,La Tisbe, for Württemberg court.François Francoeur andFrançois Rebel composedPirame et Thisbé, a lyric tragedy in five acts and a prologue, withlibretto byJean-Louis-Ignace de La Serre; it was played at the Académie royale de musique, on October 17, 1726. The story was adapted byJohn Frederick Lampe as a "Mock Opera" in 1745, containing a singing "Wall" which was described as "the most musical partition that was ever heard."[9] In 1768 inVienna,Johann Adolph Hasse composed a serious opera on the tale, titledPiramo e Tisbe.
Edmond Rostand adapted the tale, making the fathers of the lovers conspire to bring their children together by pretending to forbid their love, inLes Romanesques,[10] whose 1960 musical adaptation,The Fantasticks, became the world's longest-running musical.
Pyramus and Thisbe were featured inThe Simpsons 2012 episode "The Daughter Also Rises". Nick and Lisa's misunderstood love was compared to Thisbe and Pyramus' forbidden love. Much like the crack in the wall, Lisa and Nick met through a crack between two booths in an Italian restaurant. Lisa and Nick are portrayed as the two characters during a later portion of the episode. They go to finish off their story and head for the tree under which Pyramus and Thisbe's fate presented itself.
Bolu Babalola adapted the story of Pyramus and Thisbe in her 2020 anthologyLove in Color: Mythical Tales from Around the World, Retold. In this version Pyramus and Thisbe are college students living next door to each other in an old college dorm with a crack in the wall. Unlike in the original myth, their story ends with them happily together.
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