PYRAMUS
AND THISBE
By
Michael
Edwin Q.
What Shakespeare wrote down in “Rome and Juliet” is far
from new. The struggle of unrequited love is as old as love itself. Before
Shakespeare was woven in his mother’s womb, lovers have suffered and sacrificed
in the name of love.
Consider the plight of Pyramus and
Thisbe from ancient Greek text.
Two households, that of Pyramus,
the handsome young lad, and Thisbe, the lovely maiden, separated by brick
alone…one house next to the other.
They watched each other’s comings
and goings from afar; they fell in love without words. Their eyes, the windows
of the soul, vowed their undying love for each other.
Had their parents consented, the
two would have married in an instance; but no consent did they ever offered.
The two families remained aloof to each other; thus pleas from the two youths
fell on deaf ears.
The only consolation they found,
by accident, was in the basement of the two buildings. The connecting wall
between the two houses had a small chink, a crack between the two structures
through which the two lovers could converse.
Hours of love play took place
through that half inch crevice in the wall. Words of adoration exchanged
without as much as the slightest physical touch…so innocent and pure.
They held adulation and abhorrence
for the wall. It allowed them an avenue to vent their love; but, feeling only
each other’s hot breathe through the chink, it could only hinder their union.
They loved and hated the wall.
In vain, they tried to touch lips
between the gap but to no avail.
Finally, in despair, the two
lovers decided to meet face-to-face at the foot of a white mulberry tree at the
city’s boundary at an ancient tomb…the tomb of Ninus.
Of course, as in all stories of
love and woe, fortune took a blind eye to the circumstances and played its
pranks on all those involved.
At the tomb, a lioness brutally
attacked Thisbe but she escaped unscathed; but in her getaway, she mistakenly
dropped her scarf. The lioness that had been on the hunt throughout the day
tore at the scarf, leaving traces of blood from earlier victims.
When Pyramus arrived, he found
only the bloody scarf of Thisbe. Thinking the worst, he took his sword from out
its sheath and plunged it into his own heart.
Thisbe returned to the scene and
found her lover dead.
“Let the berries of this tree be a
testimonial to our blood, which we shed for love!” she announced, taking
Pyramus’ sword out of his dead body and plunging it into her own.
They buried their bodies within
one tomb; and from then on, the mulberry tree brought forth only berries of
red.
THE
END
