Talk:Pyramus and Thisbe

Comments
Is it really sensible to print the whole story here? – Torsten Bronger 21:15, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Should be moved to Wikisource if it isn't already there. Anyone opposed? 69.251.98.253 20:18, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

"better told"
"It is recounted by Hyginus (Fabulae 242) but is better told by Ovid (Metamorphoses 4)."

should that be changed, who tells it better is more of a matter of opinion right?


 * No one who has read both would be or has been of the opposite opinion. - Nunh-huh 00:53, 8 May 2007 (UTC)


 * No one? Now, that's hardly a plausible claim given the variety of reader responses and the contrariness of some people. I think that "is better told" is more fitting for a review than an encyclopedia article. Interlingua (talk) 19:38, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Get back to us when you've read the two versions, please. - Nunh-huh 00:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * The whole point of NPOV is to remove subjectivity. The idea of one retelling being "better" than another is one person's opinion, and unless it's stated thus ("x and y believe Ovid's version is better"), it's POV, and even if it were that way, it's not relevant '''enough to be in the summary. It's not that I disagree that Ovid's is better, it's that it looks unprofessional and biased. 12.147.51.10 (talk) 23:11, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * You know, if you would actually read what you want to opine about, you would be able to avoid such embarrassing statements. Please come back when you have found anyone who maintains that "Thisbe of Babylon killed herself because Pyramus had killed himself" is a better recounting of the story than Ovid's treatment. Because that's all that Hyginus wrote. - Nunh-huh 23:19, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * The whole point of NPOV is to remove subjectivity. The idea of one retelling being "better" than another is one person's opinion, and unless it's stated thus ("x and y believe Ovid's version is better"), it's POV, and even if it were that way, it's not relevant enough to be in the summary. It's not that I disagree that Ovid's is better, it's that it looks unprofessional and biased. ... "if you would actually read what you want to opine about," no, I don't want to opine about anything. That's my point. I want to keep my, your, and everyone's opinions out of it. 12.147.51.10 (talk) 23:20, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * No, the whole point of NPOV is to treat other's opinions fairly, and with the emphasis that they merit. Since there is no one whose opinion matters that maintains that Hyginus's one sentence summary is a superior work to Ovid's poetry, it's ludicrous to write as though there were. In any case, what I've now written there will serve to inform without provoking those who haven't read what they're writing about, and without removing the information that you want to remove. - Nunh-huh 23:25, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

Cart before horse

 * The story resembles the plot of Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, and is performed to comic effect in the play A Midsummer Night's Dream (Act V, sc 1). The latter play-within-a-play fragment was performed by the Beatles in their first US television special. The story also forms the thematic basis for the musical The Fantasticks.

I don't think this ancient story owes anything to Shakespeare. Bulfinch did not write it: he re-told it, based on writings dating from ancient Rome.

It would be more interesting if anyone could tell us whether Shakespeare was conscious of this story when writing Romeo and Juliet. The idea of a man committing suicide because he thought his young lover to be dead, and then the girl killing herself upon really discovering his corpse, may have been known to the Bard.

And is a TV special by the Beatles really relevant here? And what part of the story relates to the Fantasticks? Uncle Ed 00:28, 30 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes and No?
In reguard to Shakespeare's knowledge of the story, I might have something. On page 248 of "World Mythology" by Donna Rosenberg (Third ed.) Rosenberg states that "he [Shakespeare] included a humorous version of "Pyramus and Thisbe" in "A Midsummer Night's Drea." Moreover, although Ovid was not Shakespeare's source for "Romeo and Juliet,""Pyramus and Thisbe" obviously influenced Shapkespeare's sources, and Shakespeare's version is the finest version of this myth."

I'm not too good at this whole wikipedia thing, but I hope that helps.

Something's wrong with this page. It has vandalism, but I don't know how to change it. It's not on the edit page. Look under "adaptations".

A Midsummer Night's Dream
Should it mention somewhere that the play is also used in the Shakespearean play, A Midsummer Night's Dream, as it can be found. ☺ E fansayT/C☺ 10:20, 6 August 2007 (UTC)


 * It's in the article, but definitely more can be said about how Shakespeare used P&T and what sorts of expectations Shakespeare would have had about his audience's knowledge of P&T. Surely someone must have written an academic article or 20 on this subject. -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 02:50, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Long quote/whole story
The long quote seems fine to me because we're going to want to recount Ovid's version in about this amount of detail anyhow. Someone's already gone ahead and done it really well, and this version is out of copyright. If someone has a paraphrase that they believe is better, I think it could be substituted, but I think this summary is quite a bit better than most plot summaries on WP.

And thank goodness there are no spoiler warnings! :) -- Myke Cuthbert (talk) 22:57, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism/NPOV
A lot of this page is vandalized (edit: plagiarized) from http://www.online-mythology.com/pyramus_thisbe/ including that strange, out of place part about the "readers" and their cold hearts.

Also, the "is better told" is still POV, any single way. 12.147.51.10 (talk) 07:24, 28 January 2008 (UTC) (a bit lazy to log in. my account is StryfeX)


 * You probably mean plagiarized. And "is better told" is simply fact; you, like so many valiant editors before you, clearly haven't read the Hyginus, which consists, in its entirety, of the following: "Thisbe of Babylon killed herself because Pyramus had killed himself." - Nunh-huh 23:16, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Sorry, I think I latched onto "vandalized" mentally or something. Plagiarized is definitely what I was going for. And see my comments above in the other topic. And I am not a she. But thank you for being reasonable. 12.147.51.10 (talk) 23:19, 30 January 2008 (UTC)'''

A Midsummer's Nights dream
A play adaption of the myth holds a prominent position in shakespears novel "A Midsummer's Nights dream" It is the play that the commoners want to preform at a wedding. I have never edited before so I don't know how but someone should !!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Beatles tribute
for his 400th birthday in 1964 the beatles did this here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y24geONER0k&feature=related

and since their 1 minute hardly hearable rehearsal on the roof top performance of god save the queen is mentioned in the article of the british anthem this should also be included here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.196.226.141 (talk) 10:07, 17 March 2010 (UTC)

Shakespeare
I suggest rewriting the Shakespeare section putting the obvious reference from MND first. It's far from certain that RJ preceded MND. Any commentsSceptic1954 (talk) 21:09, 20 July 2013 (UTC)

About adaptions
Christine de Pizan also wrote an account of this tale in Le Livre de la Cité des Dames,correct? Should this be added to the "adaptations" section? MademoiselleGuillotine (talk) 11:16, 20 November 2022 (UTC)

Duplication
See Thisbe (nymph). Should merge into this article. Rwood128 (talk) 13:40, 10 May 2023 (UTC)