Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.55-166
‘Now Pyramus and Thisbe, he of all
The fine young men the handsomest, and she
The fairest girl of all the fabled East,
Lived next door to each other in that city
Whose high brick walls Semiramis once built.
As neighbours, step by step acquaintance grew;
Love ripened; wedding torches would have flamed
But for their fathers’ ban: yet never ban
Could quench the mutual flame that fired them both.
They spoke by signs; they had no go-between;
Their fire the more concealed, the fiercer raged.
Between the houses was a common wall,
Flawed with a narrow chink long years ago,
When it was built. This chink, so long unnoticed—
But what does love not see ?—those lovers found
And made of it their voices’ passageway,
And safely flowed the whispered words of love;
And often, when on her side Thisbe stood
And Pyramus on his, eager to catch
Each other’s breath, they said “O jealous wall,
Why thwart fond hearts? Why grudge to let us meet,
Or open, at least, to give our kisses room?
Yet we are grateful, for we owe to you
A pathway for sweet words of lovers true.”
So, on their separate sides, they talked in vain
Till nightfall, then “goodbye”, and on the wall
Each printed kisses that could never meet.
The rising dawn had dimmed the lamps of night,
And the sun’s beams had dried the frosty grass;
Back to their place they came; then whispering low
Their sorry troubles, they resolve, that night
When all is still, to elude their guardians,
Steal out of doors and, once outside, to leave
The city too, and lest they miss the way
In the open fields, to meet at Ninus’ tomb
And hide beneath a tree. A tree was there
Laden with snow-white fruit, a mulberry;
And close beside the tree a fresh cool spring.
They liked the plan. The sun—how slow he seemed!—
Plunged in the waves and from the waves rose night.
It was dark, and deftly Thisbe turned the lock
And reached the street unseen and, closely veiled,
Came to the tomb and sat beneath the tree.
Love made her bold. But lo! a lioness,
Her jaws all bloody from a recent kill,
Came to the spring nearby to slake her thirst.
In the bright moonlight Thisbe watched her come
And fled in terror to a shadowy cave,
And running dropped her shawl. The savage beast
Drank deep and quenched her thirst, then, turning back
Into the woods, chanced on the delicate wrap
(But not the girl!) and with her bloody jaws
Tore it. Arriving later, Pyramus
Saw the beast’s footprints plain in the deep dust,
And staggered and turned pale; then found the shawl
All bloody on the ground, and cried “One night
Two lovers shall destroy; she should have lived
A long and happy life; the guilt is mine.
Your death I caused, who bade you, piteous girl,
Alone, at night, go to this place of fear,
And came not first myself. My body rend,
My guilty flesh devour with your fierce fangs,
Ye lions whose lairs are here beneath this crag!
Yet but to wish for death’s a cowardly thing.”
He seized the shawl and bore it to the tree,
The shady trysting tree, and poured his tears
And kisses on the soft familiar silk,
And cried “Drink now a draught of my blood too!”
Then drew his sword and plunged it in his side
And quick from the warm wound withdrew the blade.
And as he lay outstretched his blood leaped high,
As when a pipe bursts where the lead is flawed
And water through the narrow hissing hole
Shoots forth long leaping jets that cut the air.
The berries of the tree, spattered with blood,
Assumed a sable hue; the blood-soaked roots
Tinged with a purple dye the hanging fruits.
But see! still fearful, Thisbe now returns
Lest Pyramus should miss her; eyes and heart
Search for her lover, and she longs to tell
The perils she has passed. She knows the place
And the tree’s shape, but yet the berries’ hue
Makes her uncertain—can this be the tree?
And while she doubts, she sees a twitching limb
Striking the bloody ground, and starts away
Paler than boxwood, shivering as the sea
Shivers beneath a little sliding breeze.
And then, at last, she sees it is her lover,
And screams, beating her breast, tearing her hair,
And takes him in her arms and bathes the wound
With gushing tears that mingle with his blood,
And prints her kisses on his death-cold lips,
Crying “My Pyramus, oh, what mischance
Has reft you from me? Answer, Pyramus!
Your dearest Thisbe calls you; lift your head!”
At Thisbe’s name he raised his dying eyes
And looked at her, and closed his eyes again.
Then, when she recognized the shawl, and saw
The ivory scabbard empty, “Hapless boy”,
She said, “Your hand, your heart destroyed you; mine,
My hand, my heart are brave for this deed too.
Love will give strength to strike. To death I’ll follow!
And men shall say of me, poor wretched Thisbe,
I was the cause and comrade of your fate,
And you whom death alone from me could sever,
Death now shall have no power to part us ever.
And yet, dear sorrowing parents, mine and his,
Grant us, we both implore, this last request,
That we whom love and life’s last hour have joined
Be not denied to share the selfsame tomb.
And you, strange tree, whose boughs one body shade
And soon shall shade another, keep for aye
The marks of death, your fruit funereal,
Most fit for grief, the pledge of our twin blood.”
She fixed the sword’s sharp point below her breast,
Then fell upon the blade still warm with blood.
The parents and the gods received her prayer:
The mulberry retains its purple hue;
One urn the ashes holds of lovers true.’
Translation by A. D. Melville