Pyramus and Thisbe

Pyramus and Thisbe

In a Nutshell

You know Bella and Edward. You know Romeo and Juliet. Now meet Pyramus and Thisbe, two crazy kids who are totally in love but kept apart by the cold, cruel world. It's a classic story that never gets old. No matter your age, everyone can get into all the swooning and sighing. It's just human nature.

Of course, not all love stories have a happy ending. Sure, some of us like it better when the young lovers live happily ever after, but if the number of tragic love stories out there is any indication, we also love to cry when it all falls apart.

So break out your tissues, Shmoopers. The tale of Pyramus and Thisbe will make you happy to be sad.

 

Shmoop Connections

Explore the ways this myth connects with the world and with other topics on Shmoop

In Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream, the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe is played for laughs by everybody's favorite working-class actors, the Mechanicals.

Star-crossed lovers whose families keep them apart? Young kids who kill themselves in the end because they mistakenly think the other is dead? Sounds familiar, right? Yeah, we're far from the only ones to notice that Shakespeare borrowed some key plot elements for Romeo and Juliet from the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe.

Don't miss Ovid's take on the myth in his classic book of myth-y poems, The Metamorphoses.