Pyramus and Thisbe (Ovid-Labeled)

Catalogue ID: 05-local-and-lesser/142-pyramus-thisbe-ovid-roman

Cycle: Local and lesser — Babylonian romance in Roman transmission

Version line: Roman transmission (Ovid) — wall-crack lovers; mulberry stained red

Sources: Ovid, *Metamorphoses* 4.55–166 (Roman)

Source file: /workspace/greek-myth-catalogue/05-local-and-lesser/142-pyramus-thisbe-ovid-roman.md

Characters

Lioness — bloodies the veil
Parents — forbid the match
Pyramus — Babylonian youth; suicides on the false omen of the veil
Thisbe — beloved; suicides over Pyramus’s body

Places

Babylon — city of the shared wall
Mulberry tree — fruit turned red by the lovers’ blood
Ninus’s tomb — tryst site under the mulberry

Themes

Theft

Narrative

Ovid tells of Pyramus and Thisbe in Babylon, neighbors who fall in love but are forbidden by their parents. They whisper through a crack in the shared wall and agree to meet at Ninus’s tomb under a white-fruited mulberry. Thisbe arrives first; a lioness fresh from cattle-killing bloodies her dropped veil; she flees. Pyramus finds the stained veil, believes her dead, and kills himself with his sword; his blood darkens the mulberry roots. Thisbe returns, finds him dying, and falls on the same sword. The gods (or parental piety in the aetiology) leave the mulberry’s fruit dark red thereafter. Catalogue as Roman-primary; not a recovered classical Greek local myth.