The story of Pyramus and Thisbe is a tragic tale of forbidden love, misunderstandings, and ultimate despair, which serves as a poignant and often comedic counterpoint to the romantic entanglements in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.
The Story of Pyramus and Thisbe
The myth of Pyramus and Thisbe originates from Ovid's Metamorphoses. It tells the story of two young lovers from Babylon:
- Forbidden Love: Pyramus and Thisbe grow up in connected houses and fall deeply in love. However, their parents forbid them to marry.
- The Wall: Despite the parental disapproval, they communicate their love through a chink in a shared wall between their homes.
- Elopement Plan: Frustrated by their inability to be together, the two young lovers decide to run away from their families and elope. They arrange to meet outside the city at the tomb of Ninus, near a mulberry tree with white berries.
- Tragic Misunderstanding: Thisbe arrives first but is startled by a lioness with a bloody mouth, fresh from a kill. She flees into a cave, dropping her veil or cloak in her haste. The lioness, without harming Thisbe, tears at the cloak, leaving it bloody and tattered.
- Pyramus's Despair: Pyramus arrives to find the bloody, torn cloak and the tracks of the lioness. He immediately assumes the worst – that the lioness has killed Thisbe. Overwhelmed with grief and guilt for suggesting the meeting place, he takes his own sword and commits suicide under the mulberry tree. His blood splatters the white berries, staining them dark red, a color they retain to this day.
- Thisbe's Discovery and Suicide: Thisbe, emerging from the cave, returns to the meeting spot. She finds Pyramus dying and realizes the tragic misunderstanding that has occurred. Heartbroken and unwilling to live without him, she takes his sword and kills herself, falling upon his body.
The story highlights themes of passionate love, parental opposition, fate, and the devastating consequences of miscommunication and hasty conclusions.
Connection to the Plot in A Midsummer Night's Dream
The story of Pyramus and Thisbe is central to A Midsummer Night's Dream because it is the play chosen by the Mechanicals (a group of amateur Athenian craftsmen) to perform for Duke Theseus's wedding celebration. This play-within-a-play, titled "The most lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe," directly parallels and comically mirrors the main plotlines of the Athenian lovers:
Direct Parallels and Thematic Connections
The parallels between the tragic tale of Pyramus and Thisbe and the comedic romantic entanglements of Hermia, Lysander, Helena, and Demetrius are striking:
| Aspect | Pyramus and Thisbe | Athenian Lovers in A Midsummer Night's Dream |
|---|---|---|
| Forbidden Love | Pyramus and Thisbe are forbidden to marry by their parents. | Hermia is forbidden from marrying Lysander by her father, Egeus, and Athenian law. |
| Elopement Attempt | Pyramus and Thisbe plan to run away and meet outside the city. | Hermia and Lysander decide to run away into the woods to escape Athenian law and Egeus's decree. |
| Misunderstandings | Pyramus mistakenly believes Thisbe is dead after seeing her bloody cloak, leading to his suicide. | The lovers' affections are repeatedly mistaken and manipulated by Puck's love potion, leading to chaotic confusion and temporary heartbreak among them. |
| Dramatic Irony / Parody | A genuine tragedy based on misunderstanding. | The Mechanicals' performance of this tragedy is highly comedic due to their lack of skill, inadvertently parodying the dramatic intensity the main lovers experienced. |
| Fate and Love's Folly | Depicts the cruel hand of fate in love. | Highlights the capricious and often absurd nature of love, demonstrating how easily affections can shift (with the help of magic). |
Commentary and Comic Relief
The Mechanicals' earnest but hilariously incompetent performance of Pyramus and Thisbe serves multiple purposes within A Midsummer Night's Dream:
- Comic Relief: The bumbling actors, their literal interpretations (e.g., Starveling as Moonshine, Snout as Wall), and their earnest but awkward delivery provide immense comedic relief in the final act, after the lovers' confusions have been resolved.
- Metatheatrical Commentary: The play acts as a form of metatheatrical commentary on the nature of drama itself. The audience (both the characters on stage and the actual playgoers) sees how love, tragedy, and mistaken identity can be presented, both genuinely and comically.
- Contrast to Main Plot: By presenting a truly tragic outcome of mistaken identity (Pyramus and Thisbe's deaths) in such an absurd manner, it underscores the happy resolution of the Athenian lovers' predicaments. Their misadventures, while emotionally intense for them, were ultimately harmless and ended in multiple marriages, unlike the fatal consequences in Pyramus and Thisbe. It suggests that while love can be confusing and dramatic, it doesn't always have to end in despair.
Ultimately, the story of Pyramus and Thisbe acts as a tragic foil and a comedic echo, allowing Shakespeare to explore the themes of love, fate, and perception from multiple angles within the fantastical world of A Midsummer Night's Dream.
