"The Story of Pyramus and Thisbe"

Of the 250 tales in the Metamorphoses, “The Story of Pyramus and Thisbe” is one of the few not based on Greek or Roman myth and legend. It is set in Babylon. The star-crossed lovers are neighbors, and acquaintance has turned into love.  Their parents forbid them to marry but as Ovid knows, "fire suppressed burns all the fiercer." (I'm using the edition translated by Rolfe Humphries.)

They meet each day and speak to one another through "a chink in the wall between the houses," a chink that none but the lovers had noticed ("love is a finder, always") until they finally decide to run away together. They plan to meet at Ninus' Tomb.

(Digression: Ninus is apparently based on Greek legend which claims that he was the founder of Nineveh, the ancient capital of Assyria. He was said to have trained the first hunting dog and to have broken wild horses for riding. However, I've never heard anything about his "tomb." I always think it would be more interesting if Ovid had referred to Sardanapalus who was, according to Diodorus the Sicilian (go to Google Books to find his history) "the 30th from Ninus." According to Diodorus, Sardanapalus "succeeded all his predecessors in sloth and luxury" and we do have his epitaph which he apparently wrote himself: "What once I gorg'd I now enjoy/ And wanton lusts me still employ./ All other things by mortals priz'd,/ Are left as dirt by me despis'd." A sardonic fellow. Byron wrote a play about him and Delacroix painted a beautifully sumptuous work based on that play--The Death of Sardanapalus. In it we see a rather indifferent Sardanapalus leaning on his pillow while he watches all of his treasures, concubines and slaves being killed before he has his bed set ablaze. He prefers death to the inevitable defeat by his rebellious enemy. He doesn't want the enemy to get any spoils of war.  Here is a link to that painting:  http://cgfa.acropolisinc.com/delacroi/p-delacroix22.htm )

For Ovid's story, the importance of Ninus' Tomb is that it is near "A Mulberry-tree, loaded with snow-white berries."  Thisbe gets there first and is frightened by "A lioness, her jaws a crimson froth" and hides inside a cave dropping her veil as she flees. The lioness finds the veil and mauls it. Pyramus "coming there/ Too late, saw tracks in the dust, turned pale, and paler/ Seeing the bloody veil." He blames himself for not protecting Thisbe whom he assumes has been killed and

"draws his sword, and plunges it into his body, / And, dying, draws it out, warm from the wound./ As he lay there on the ground, the spouting blood/ Leaped high, just as a pipe sends water spurting/ Through a small hissing opening, when broken/ With a flaw in the lead, and all the air is sprinkled./ The fruit of the tree, from that red spray, turned crimson, / And the roots, soaked with the blood, dyed all the berries/ The same dark hue."

Thisbe coming out of the cave finds Pyramus who "saw her face, and closed his eyes." She sees her bloodied veil and understands what happened. She "Fell forward on the blade, still warm and recking/ With her lover's blood." (Ovid always seems to love describing the blood and guts of any situation.) The tragedy is complete and because Thisbe's "prayers touched the gods," mulberry trees bear red fruit rather than white.

The dead lover's parents bury the ashes in a "common urn." What is the moral of the story?