Origins
Ovid's is the oldest surviving version of the story, published in 8 AD, but he adapted an existing aetiological myth. While in Ovid's telling Pyramus and Thisbe lived in Babylon, and Ctesias had placed the tomb of his imagined king Ninus near that city, the myth probably originated in Cilicia (part of Ninus' Babylonian empire) as Pyramos is the historical Greek name of the local Ceyhan River. The metamorphosis in the primary story involves Pyramus changing into this river and Thisbe into a nearby spring. A 2nd-century mosaic unearthed near Nea Paphos on Cyprus depicts this older version of the myth.Adaptations
The story of ''Pyramus and Thisbe'' appears in Giovanni Boccaccio's ''On Famous Women'' as biography number twelve (sometimes thirteen) and in his ''Decameron'', in the fifth story on the seventh day, where a desperate housewife falls in love with her neighbor, and communicates with him through a crack in the wall, attracting his attention by dropping pieces of stone and straw through the crack. In the 1380s, Geoffrey Chaucer, in his ''The Legend of Good Women'', and John Gower, in his ''Confessio Amantis'', were the first to tell the story in English language, English. Gower altered the story somewhat into a cautionary tale. John Metham's ''Amoryus and Cleopes'' (1449) is another early English adaptation. The tragedy of ''Romeo and Juliet'' ultimately sprang from Ovid's story. Here the star-crossed lovers cannot be together because Juliet has been engaged by her parents to another man and the two families hold an ancient grudge. As in Pyramus and Thisbe, the mistaken belief in one lover's death leads to consecutive suicides. The earliest version of ''Romeo and Juliet'' was published in 1476 by Masuccio Salernitano, while it mostly obtained its present form when written down in 1524 by Luigi da Porto. Salernitano and Da Porto both are thought to have been inspired by Ovid and Boccaccio's writing. William Shakespeare, Shakespeare's most famous 1590s adaptation is a dramatization of Arthur Brooke (poet), Arthur Brooke's 1562 poem ''The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet'', itself a translation of a French translation of Da Porto's novella. In Shakespeare's ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' (Act V, sc 1), a comedy written in the 1590s, a group of "Mechanical (character), mechanicals" enact the story of "Pyramus and Thisbe". Their production is crude and, for the most part, badly done until the final monologues of Nick Bottom, as Pyramus and Francis Flute, as Thisbe. The theme of forbidden love is also present in ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' (albeit a less tragic and dark representation) in that a girl, Hermia, is not able to marry the man she loves, Lysander (Shakespeare), Lysander, because her father Egeus despises him and wishes for her to marry Demetrius (A Midsummer Night's Dream), Demetrius, and meanwhile Hermia and Lysander are confident that Helena (A Midsummer Night's Dream), Helena is in love with Demetrius. The Beatles performed a humorous performance of “Pyramus and Thisbe” on the 1964 television special ''Around the Beatles''. Primarily based around William Shakespeare's adaptation, the performance featured Paul McCartney as Pyramus, John Lennon as his lover Thisbe, George Harrison as Moonshine, and Ringo Starr as Lion, with Trevor Peacock in the role of Quince. Spanish poet Luis de Góngora wrote a ''Fábula de Píramo y Tisbe'' in 1618, while French poet Théophile de Viau wrote ''Les amours tragiques de Pyrame et Thisbée'', a tragedy in five acts, in 1621. In 1718 Giuseppe Antonio Brescianello wrote his only opera, ''La Tisbe'', for Württemberg court. François Francoeur and François Rebel composed ''Pirame et Thisbé'', a lyric tragedy in five acts and a prologue, with libretto by Jean-Louis-Ignace de La Serre; it was played at the Académie royale de musique, on October 17, 1726. The story was adapted by John Frederick Lampe as a "Mock Opera" in 1745, containing a singing "Wall" which was described as "the most musical partition that was ever heard." In 1768 in Vienna, Johann Adolph Hasse composed a serious opera on the tale, titled ''Piramo e Tisbe''. Edmond Rostand adapted the tale, making the fathers of the lovers conspire to bring their children together by pretending to forbid their love, in ''Les Romanesques'', whose 1960 musical adaptation, ''The Fantasticks,'' became the world's longest-running musical. Pyramus and Thisbe were featured in ''The Simpsons'' 2012 episode "The Daughter Also Rises". Nick and Lisa's misunderstood love was compared to Thisbe and Pyramus’ forbidden love. Much like the crack in the wall, Lisa and Nick met through a crack between two booths in an Italian restaurant. Lisa and Nick are portrayed as the two characters during a later portion of the episode. They go to finish off their story and head for the tree under which Pyramus and Thisbe's fate presented itself.In art
See also
* Latin literature * Pyramus and Thisbe Club, a UK organisation concerned with party wall legislation * Star-crossedCitations
General references
Primary sources
* Ovid, ''Metamorphoses'' iv.55–166Secondary sources
* Bulfinch, ThomasExternal links