SHORT STORY

Pyramus
and
Thisbe
Ovid
retold by
Edith Hamilton
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BACKGROUND CLOSE READ TO

The tale of Pyramus and Thisbe appears in Book IV of Metamorphoses, UNLOCK MEANING
Ovid’s greatest achievement. A poem of nearly 12,000 lines, it tells a series 1. Read the text for
of stories beginning with the creation of the world and ending with the comprehension.
death of Julius Caesar. In each story, someone or something undergoes a 2. Go back and respond to
the Close-Read notes.
transformation. The entire work reads as one long, uninterrupted tale.
3. Identify other textual
details you find
1

O nce 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.
interesting. Ask your own
questions and draw your
own conclusions.

2 Pyramus and Thisbe, he the most beautiful youth and she the
loveliest maiden of all the East, lived in Babylon, the city of Queen
Pyramus and Thisbe 401
 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,
forbidden (fuhr BIHD uhn) adj. cannot be forbidden. The more that flame is covered up, the hotter it
prevented or prohibited burns. Also love can always find a way. It was impossible that these
two whose hearts were on fire should be kept apart.
CLOSE READ 3 In the wall both houses shared there was a little chink. No one
ANNOTATE: In paragraph 3, before had noticed it, but there is nothing a lover does not notice.
note the spoken dialogue.
Our two young people discovered it and through it they were able to
QUESTION: Why does whisper sweetly back and forth. Thisbe on one side, Pyramus on the
the author choose to let other. The hateful wall that separated them had become their means
the characters speak for of reaching each other. “But for you we could touch, kiss,” they
themselves at this point? would say. “But at least you let us speak together. You give a passage
CONCLUDE: What is the for loving words to reach loving ears. We are not ungrateful.” So they
effect of hearing these lines would talk, and as night came on and they must part, each would
from Pyramus and Thisbe press on the wall kisses that could not go through to the lips on the
directly? other side.
4 Every morning when the dawn had put out the stars, and the
steal (steel) v. move in a way sun’s rays had dried the hoarfrost on the grass, they would steal to
that is secret or quiet 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.
5 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
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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,

402 UNIT 3 • CRAZY, STUPID LOVE

 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 dyed them a dark red.
6 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 tryst (trihst) n. secret romantic
mulberry with the shining white fruit. She could not find it. A tree meeting
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
flew 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.
7 She saw his sword fallen from his hand and beside it her cloak
stained and torn. 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.
8 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. ❧
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