Pyramus and Thisbe Review

Bulfinch, Thomas, and Bryan Holme. "Pyramus and Thisbe." Myths of Greece and Rome. New York, NY: Penguin, 1981. 47-49. Print. Pyramus and Thisbe were neighbors their whole lives. However, they had never met because there was an enormous wall between their homes. Their families hated each other for reasons nobody could remember. When the two were teenagers, they finally met and fell in love before they knew who the other was. Because their families did not approve, they communicated through a crack in the wall. Eventually they decided to meet in a nearby grove. Thisbe arrived first wearing a veil so that no one would recognize her. As she waited for Pyramus, a lioness appeared. Thisbe went to hide, but left her veil behind. The lioness tore up the veil, and injured its paw in the process, leaving behind a bloody footprint. When Thisbe arrived to find the bloody veil, he assumed Thisbe was killed, and committed suicide. When Thisbe came out of hiding to find Pyramus dead, she decided that she could not live without him and killed herself with his sword. This source was useful in learning the background information of Pyramus and Thisbe. This myth is the basis of Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet, therefore it is important to know the story and see how it connects to the play. There did not appear to be any bias, it was a straightforward telling of the story. This information is reliable. The author’s original work was created 150 years ago and is still in use today, this version simply contained a new introduction. I found this source very helpful. It was the first thing I looked up because I knew that I would need to read the story of Pyramus and Thisbe before I could continue with any other research. You need to know the basics of a topic before you can go into a lot of detail. I believe now that this was the main inspiration for Romeo and Juliet. With my prior knowledge of the play, I found many similarities such as the feuding families, the young forbidden love, and the miscommunications that lead to two unfortunate deaths.