Thisbe

Thisbe is a character who appears in the work Metamorphoses by the Roman poet Ovid, in which she is the beloved of Pyramus. Ovid calls him the most beautiful of young men and her the most admired of the girls of the East (Metamorphoses 4.55–56). She is best remembered as the lover who fled a lioness, losing her veil, and who took her own life with Pyramus’ sword on finding him dead.

She lived in Babylon, the city that Semiramis was said to have surrounded with a wall of baked brick. Thisbe and Pyramus lived in neighbouring houses and fell in love as they grew up, but their fathers forbade the marriage. The two lovers were able to speak to each other through a crack in the wall that the two houses shared, which nobody had noticed for many years. There they whispered their vows and complained about the wall, and at last they agreed to slip away at night and meet at the tomb of Ninus, beneath a tall mulberry tree with white fruit that stood beside a cold spring (Metamorphoses 4.57–90).

Thisbe arrived first, veiled, and sat down under the tree. A lioness, her jaws foaming and bloody from killing cattle, came to drink at the spring. Thisbe saw her in the moonlight and fled into a dark cave, and in her flight her veil slipped from her shoulders. When the lioness had drunk, she found the veil on her way back to the woods and tore it with her bloody mouth (Metamorphoses 4.96–104).

Pyramus came later and saw the lioness’s tracks and then the bloodied veil. He believed that Thisbe had been killed, and drove his sword into his side. His blood spurted over the mulberry tree, and the white fruit turned dark red (Metamorphoses 4.105–127). Thisbe came back, afraid of keeping her lover waiting, and was unsure of the tree because the color of its fruit had changed. Then she saw a body struggling on the bloody ground. She mourned him and kissed him, and Pyramus raised his heavy eyes at the sound of her name, saw her, and died (4.128–146). Seeing her veil and his empty scabbard, she said that her own hand and love would give her the strength to follow him, and she asked that their parents let the two lie in the same tomb. She asked the tree to keep the dark fruit as a sign of the two deaths, and then fell on the sword, which was still warm (Metamorphoses 4.147–163).

Her prayer reached the gods and also the parents of the lovers: the mulberry fruit is dark when it ripens, and the ashes of the two lovers rest together in a single urn (Metamorphoses 4.164–166).

Thisbe Sources

Ovid, Metamorphoses 4.55–166.

See Also: Pyramus