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

Pyramus and Thisbe

The wall is literally the boundary between Pyramus and Thisbe, it keeps them apart when all they want is to be together. Even though it separates them, it provides a passage for them to talk. A crack that was made previously in the wall, enables them to whisper sweet nothings to each other. Yet, they are still not able to touch or see each other. The wall can also symbolize the young lovers' parents and the young lovers themselves. Their parents refuse to let them see each other or to become married and Pyramus and Thisbe will do anything to get the opposite. The wall can symbolize the refusal of their parents and the rebuttal of the young lovers. It keeps them apart, but in a sense they are together. The wall may also symbolize safety. The wall is the yards of their two houses, so it is a part of their homes. When you think of you home you usually consider it as a place where you are safe and secure. Immediately after leaving those walls, and her home, Lesbia is confronted with danger. The wall can have many different meanings, it just depends on how you look at it.

Pyramus and Thisbe

Ovid uses a rhetorical question in line 68. "What does love not percieve?" is a question that he does not expect an answer to. He uses the question to make the reader think.

In the same line he uses apostrophe. He directly addresses the wall when it is not really there. "- you saw the lovers first, /and you made a passage for their voices;"

He uses pleonasm in line 72. Ovid uses an excess of of words to express an idea. He does not need to use the word mouth when he says "gasping mouth" because the mouth is the only part of the body that can gasp.

Catullus 75

Catullus I still don't understand,
You have been slapped with the back of a hand,
Yet willingly you go back
After her brutal attack,
Now you should leave her as fast as quicksand.