Pyramus and Thisbe

pg 55 # 2

Ovid ends the story with, "for the color of the fruit, when it ripened, was black, and that which remains of the funeral pyre, rests in one urn." The color of the fruit is dark, which also represents their death. Throughout the story darkness has not really been considered a bad thing, it conceals them so that they can be together. When Thisbe leaves the walls of the city she is concealed by the night and soon will be concealed by the shade of the tree where they were going to meet. The dark gives them a chance to be together as they never could in the light. Darkness also represents death, and as they are together in darkness, they are together in death. Light doesn't serve as something good in this story either. Light represents life, and in life Pyramus and Thisbe would never have the chance to be together. Life meant living without the person you loved so both Pyramus and Thisbe killed themselves. With the fruit dark and them dead, they were together at last.

Pyramus and Thisbe

pg 49 #1

Ovid's graphic depiction of Pyramus' death is essential to the story because it is from his collection of metamorphoses. If it weren't for the extreme amount of blood, it wouldn't explain the change in color of the mulberry tree's fruit. The blood had to spurt high into the air so that it would be able to reach the fruit in the tree. It also soaked into the roots. He used the simile of the bursted lead pipes to show how messy the situation actually was, and that the blood would inevitably lget on the tree. This also shows the naivety of young Pyramus, he did not wait to see if what he believed to be really was. He had a deep love for Thisbe, this is why he went to such grusome measures, but if he had been older this would not have been the case. This fits the story completely because he was young and in love and had not yet experienced heartbreak.

Pyramus and Thisbe

In it's entirety lines 105-114 there is a lot of the alliteration of the letter v, "serius egressus vestigia vidit in alto" and " ut vero vestem quoque sanguine." This means that he is repeating the innitial consonant sound of the letter V. This may be to show the saddness of Pyramus.

In line 110 Ovid uses personification. When Pyramus says "My soul is guilty," his soul cannot really be guilty. He gave a quality of humans to something absract, his soul. This puts more emphasis on how guilty he actually is.

In line 114 he uses apostrophe. This means that the character is addressing someone or something that is not really there. Pyramus is asking "whatever lions under this rock" to kill him for what he thinks he did to Thisbe.

Pyramus and Thisbe

There once was a girl named Thisbe

Who hid in a cave none could see

Her love thought she died

So he cried and he cried

And now he no longer can pee