Pyramus

Profile

Pyramus is the male figure of the celebrated Ovidian fable taken up by Dante as a comparative image, not as a character on stage. In Purgatorio XXVII, v. 38, the poet mentions him alongside Thisbe to describe a soul that, at the name of his beloved, turns to look at her already at the point of death: «Piramo in su la morte, e riguardolla». The authorized note to the same canto summarizes the episode drawn from Ovid, Metamorphoses IV 55-166: the two young Babylonians, thwarted by their families, arrange to meet near a mulberry tree; Thisbe, arriving first, flees from a lioness and loses her veil; Pyramus, believing her dead, runs himself through with his sword; Thisbe, returning, calls him and he opens his dying eyes. In Purgatorio XXXIII, v. 69, Pyramus returns as a term of comparison for the pleasure that stains the mind, recalling the blood of the hero that tinted the mulberry's flowers. The figure thus remains a term of similitude and cannot be placed in any circle, terrace, or heaven of the journey.