Motif Index of German Secular Narratives                 
Published by the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna
 Introduction   Matière de Bretagne   Chansons de Geste   Miscellaneous Romances   Oriental Romances   Heroic Epic   Maere and Novellas   Romances of Antiquity   Index 

Pyramus und Thisbe (1350)
PyrTh-1
PyrTh-65
PyrTh-109
PyrTh-209
PyrTh-299
  

Romances of Antiquity

Pyramus und Thisbe (1350)
Pyramus und Thisbe. In: ZfdA 6 (1848). p. 504-517.

PyrTh-1:   The author will not keep silent about the championship of “minne” who has reigned in all times and places and rules over all people. In Babylon there are two kings who had a son and a daughter called Pyramus and Thisbe. Their houses are built very close to each other. Both are so beautiful the no one is their equal. They were born the same day and died in the same night. They fall in love with each other as soon as they gain their senses when they are six years old. They feel hot and cold because of love. After they have loved each other for ten years people become aware and inform the court and want to separate the lovers from each other. The young lovers become very desperate.
Motif References:

T 10 Falling in love
T 22.4 Lovers fated to marry each other born at same time
T 24.1 Love-sickness
T 24 The symptoms of love

PyrTh-65:   In their distress they accuse Minne of having forsaken them. The desperate lovers are not allowed to see each other. Both houses are separated by a thick wall. They communicate with each other standing on either side of the wall. The young man and the girl loved each other, and would have married, but their parents forbade it. Lacking a go-between, they communicated just by nods and signs. Later, their love discovered a slender chink in the wall which became the channel of their speech, and they talked to each other until night came, printing in each side of the wall the kisses they were prevented from giving each other.
Motif References:

T 41.1 Communication of lovers through hole in wall
T 42 Conversation of lovers

PyrTh-109:   Not being able to endure the separation, they decide to escape one night and to meet at Ninus’ tomb under the shade of a mulberry tree. Thisbe is the first to arrive with her face well veiled, but while she is waiting for Pyramus, a lioness comes for water to a neighboring spring. Her jaws drip with the blood of the cattle she has slain, and at this sight, Thisbe escapes to a nearby cavern, but as she hastens to elude the beast, she leaves her cloak on the ground behind her.
Motif References:

T 35 Lovers’ rendezvous
R 225 Elopement

PyrTh-209:   The lioness quenches her thirst and by chance comes upon the cloak, tearing it with her bloody jaws. A little later Pyramus arrives, and seeing the lioness and the cloak, he assumes Thisbe to be dead, and in desperation, grief, and guilt, plunges his sword into his side, drawing it straightaway from the wound. As he lies stretched, the jets of blood leap high, turning into dark red the white fruit of the tree.
Motif References:

N 343 Lover kills self believing his mistress dead. She has been frightened away by a lion (Pyramus and Thisbe)

PyrTh-299:   When Thisbe comes out of her hiding, fearing her lover would miss her, she finds Pyramus lying under a tree. Pyramus sees her and sends her a last loving glance. He dies, Thisbe laments their cruel fate. Then she takes the sword and kills herself. But the remains of both funeral pyres rest together in the same urn, and ever since, the color of the mulberry fruit is dark red when ripe. (End 488)
Motif References:

T 80 Tragic love
N 343.4 Lover commits suicide on finding beloved dead