Ovid: Pyramus and Thisbe - Discussion Question #2

In what ways do the story's closing lines (165-66) aptly conclude the darkness/death imagery which Ovid has developed throughout the narrative?

Throughout the tale, Ovid has piled on the negative imagery. There is darkness and death everywhere you go in Pyramus and Thisbe. In line 79, the lovers make their great escape sub noctem. They make a plan to meet in shadow, sub umbra arboris (88). To hide from the lioness, Thisbe runs into an obscurum antum (100). Pyramus captures the entire essence of the darkness and death imagery in one line: Una duos nox perdet amantes (108). The darkness has brought them together (escape from their overbearing parents) yet it also destroys them (they both kill themselves in the night).

Pyramus' suicide is a heartwrenching example of the overall conception of death in the story: 'Accipe nunc,' inquit, 'nostri quoque sanguinis haustus!' Quoque erat accinctus, demisit in ilia ferrum, nec mora, ferventi moriens e vulnere traxit, et iacuit resupinus homo (118-121). Death clearly seems to be a horrible to the two lovers, something that will keep them apart in life. Yet this is not so for Thisbe, who firmly declares that 'Dabit hic in vulnera vires. Persequar exstinctum (150-151).' Death will bring the two lovers together.

And that is exactly what happens in the story's last two lines. The mulberry tree, which has been splattered with the dark blood of Pyramus' death, will be a perpetual reminder of the lovers' tragic tale - keeping them together in people's hearts; when one thinks of Pyramus, they will automatically think of Thisbe, and vice versa. Finally, the lovers will forever be joined by the grace of their parents: rogis superest, una requiescit in urna (166).

Ovid: Pyramus and Thisbe - Discussion Question

Ancient epic often contained seemingly gratuitious descriptions of physical violence; how is Ovid's graphic depiction of Pyramus' suicide on the other hand, quite essential to the story-line?

Pyramus' suicide is grotesque, violent, and unpleasant. It is described in such lavish detail that the reader is thoroughly disgusted yet drawn in as well. The ugly depiction of the suicide serves to invoke a reader's emotional response to the story. The plot is already foreboding (with the lioness and Thisbe's escape into a dark cave) but Pyramus' tragic death serves to create sympathy for the two lovers even more.
Pyramus' grief-stricken plea of "Accipe nunc, nostri quoque sanguinis haustus!" has much more of an impact when it is followed by a detailed portrayal of an extragavant death. The audience feels much more pathos for the character, and is drawn into the story even more, anticipating yet another dismaying scene as Thisbe discovers the mutilated body of her lover.

Limericks for Ovid

There once was a girl named Thisbe
With Pyramus she was forbidden to marry
But a lioness come from her prey
Made Thisbe run very far away
And forever grief she would carry.

Ovid: Pyramus and Thisbe - Some More Rhetorical Devices :)

After the first 90 or so lines, Ovid uses some personification - et lux, tarde discedere visa, praecipitatur aquis, et aquis nox exit ab isdem - "and the light, having seemed to depart slowly, plunged downard into the waters and the night rose out of the same waters." Day and night don't depart or rise; they're just there based off of the presence or absence of the sun.

In the next few lines, he uses the alliteration of a hard C to foreshadow the unpleasantness about to ensue: ecce, recenti caede, which itself means "look, the recent slaughter..."

During Pyramus's death, he uses a simile to describe the severity of the wound that Pyruams has inflicted upon himself. The blood from the wound spurts out non aliter quam cum vitiato fistula plumbo scinditur, et tenui stridente foramine longas eiaculatur aquas, atque ictibus aera rumpit - "no differently than when a faulty water pipe of lead is split, and shoots out long streams of water hissing thinly and breaking the pulsing air."