Metamorphoses: Book 4: Pyramus and Thisbe Summary & Analysis

Minyas’s first daughter tells the story of how the mulberry tree’s white berries became red: once, two beautiful teenagers—Pyramus and Thisbe—lived in adjoining estates. Growing up together, they fall in love, but they are forbidden to marry because their families don’t approve of the match. One day, they discover a small hole in the wall that divides their families’ estates, and they whisper to each other through it. They are grateful to the wall for allowing them to talk to each other, but they curse it for separating them physically.

One day, Pyramus and Thisbe decide to elude their guards the next night and run away together. They decide to meet at a mulberry tree—a tree that had white berries—by a fountain before leaving the city. That night, Thisbe sneaks out to the mulberry tree. As she waits for Pyramus, a lion whose mouth is bloody from a kill comes to drink in the fountain. Frightened, Thisbe runs to a cave to hide, accidentally dropping her cloak behind her. As the lion is leaving the fountain, it mangles the cloak in its bloody mouth.

Soon after, Pyramus arrives at the mulberry tree and discovers Thisbe’s bloody cloak. Thinking that Thisbe was eaten by a wild beast, Pyramus stabs himself, wanting to die with her. His blood spurts up, staining the mulberries and the roots of the tree dark red.

A little later, Thisbe dares to leave the cave and return to the mulberry tree to meet Pyramus. She is confused by the new red color of the mulberries until she finds Pyramus’s writhing body. She embraces him and kisses him. Pyramus looks into her eyes and dies. Thisbe notices her bloody cloak and guesses that Pyramus killed himself to be with Thisbe whom he thought was dead. Thisbe then kills herself with Pyramus’s sword, praying to the gods that the mulberry tree remain red forever as a sign of their united love. The gods answer her prayer, and so the mulberry tree now bears red berries.