PYRAMUS AND THISBE

:''For the asteroid, see 88 Thisbe; for the genus of metalmark butterflies, see ''Thisbe (butterfly).

The love story of 'Pyramus and Thisbe', not really a part of Roman mythology, is actually a sentimental romance. It is recounted by Hyginus (''Fabulae'' 242) but is better told by Ovid (''Metamorphoses'' 4).

Contents

Ovid's version

Adaptations

Allusions

References

External links

Ovid's version

The following is a paraphrase of Ovid by Thomas Bulfinch (''The Age of Fable'', 1855):
^[1]

Adaptations

The story appears in Giovanni Boccaccio's 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 Chaucer was among the first to tell the story in English with his ''The Legend of Good Women''. The "Pyramus and Thisbe" plot appears twice in Shakespeare's works. The plot of ''Romeo and Juliet'' may draw either from Ovid's Latin retelling in the ''Metamorphoses'', or from Golding's 1567 translation of that work. A comic recapitulation appears in the play ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' (Act V, sc 1), enacted by a group of "mechanicals". John Frederick Lampe adapted the story as a "Mock Opera" in 1745, complete with a singing "Wall" described as "the most musical partition...ever heard."^[2] 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 Fantastics'' was the basis for the musical ''The Fantasticks''. The musical ''West Side Story'', based on ''Romeo and Juliet'', and ''The Fantasticks'', thus have the same ultimate source. Louisa May Alcott, author of ''Little Women'', also wrote a children's version of "Pyramus and Thisbe" in her short story "A Hole in the Wall".

Allusions

In Mickle's translation of the Lusiad occurs the following
allusion to the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, and the
metamorphosis of the mulberries. The poet is describing the
Island of Love.
If any of our young readers can be so hard-hearted as to enjoy a
laugh at the expense of poor Pyramus and Thisbe, they may find an
opportunity by turning to Shakespeare's play of Midsummer Night's
Dream, where it is most amusingly burlesqued.
Here is the description of the play and the characters by the
Prologue.
The novelist Henry Fielding makes a comic comparison between the eavesdropping of Miss Bridget through a keyhole and Thisbe's listening:
The late poet laureate Ted Hughes concludes his 24 ''Tales from Ovid'' (1997) with the tale of the two unfortunate lovers. Here are the first few lines of the poem:
----
'Thisbe' is also a transliteration of ''Tishbe'', a town mentioned in the Bible (Tanakh or Old Testament) ^[1].
'Thisbe' "of the many doves" is mentioned as a city in Boeotia in the Catalogue of Ships, from ''Iliad'' 2.502. Pausanias mentions a Boeotian nymph named Thisbe for whom the city is named (9.32.2).

References

1. 1913 edition of ''The Age of Fable'', section on Pyramus and Thisbe at http://www.bartleby.com/181/032.html
2. Recorded on Hyperion Records, CDA66759

External links

★ Carlos Paraga, Greek Mythology link: Pyramus and Thisbe

★ Pyramus and Thisbe performed by The Beatles