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).