Amatores Exclusi: Apostrophe and Separation in the Pyramus and Thisbe Episode
Author(s): Louis A. Perraud
Source: The Classical Journal, Vol. 79, No. 2 (Dec., 1983 - Jan., 1984), pp. 135-139
Published by: The Classical Association of the Middle West and South
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AMATORESEXCLUSI:
IN THEPYRAMUS
AND SEPARATION
APOSTROPHE
AND THISBEEPISODE
In the Pyramusand Thisbe episode (Metamorphoses
4.55-166), Ovid
createda poemof love frustrated
by separation:
by the wall whichkeepsthe
loversfromeach otherduringtheircourtship,by theirfailureto meet after
their escape, by the death of Pyramus.'As this article will show, the
frustration
andpathosof thelovers'separation
arerepeatedlysuggestedby an
to them,
ironicstrategyof Ovidianrhetoric.Inthespeechesdirectlyattributed
the loversaremadeto expresstheirfeelingsfor each otherin apostrophes.2
Eachtimethe loversmakethesedeclarations
of sentimentthereis a decided
andthe situationin
betweentherhetoricalformof theapostrophe
incongruity
which it is spoken,or betweenthe rhetoricalform and its content.These
serveas jarringremindersof the lovers'inabilityto fulfilltheir
incongruities
by
relationship directencounter.
The speechwhichPyramusand Thisbedeliverat the wall betweentheir
housesis artfullyframedto suggestthe vividnessof a specificconversation
withoutactuallyportrayingone. Even a glanceat the introduction
to their
wordsrevealsthe artifice:
hincThisbe,Pyramusillinc,
Saepe,ubiconstiterant,
vices
fuerat
captatusanhelitusoris,
Inque
...
dicebant . . . (71-73)3
Dialogueis suggestedby the observationthatthe wall betweentheirhouses
thebreathof theirmouthsin turn"(72). However,thesaepe in the
"captured
precedingclauseindicatesthatthe exchangeis a typical,not an individual
one. Inthe sameclause(71),theuse of ubi andthepluperfect,as elsewherein
of theiractions,an impressionwhichis
Ovid,4indicatesthe repetitiveness
again reinforcedby the imperfectdicebant in line 73. The lines which
concludetheirspeech, thoughthey too conveysome of the immediacyof
dialogue, confirmthat the wordsjust attributedto Pyramusand Thisbe
representtheirhabitualconversation:
'For Brooks Otis, the strength of the love which could not endure these separationsis the
centraltheme of the episode. See Ovid as an Epic Poet2 (Cambridge1970) 155.
2The term apostropheis used here in the broadsense assigned to it at Ad Herennium4.15, 22:
"Apostropheis the figure which expresses grief or indignationby means of an address to some
man or city or place or object." (H. Caplan, editor and translator,Ad Herennium[New Yorkand
London 1954] 283).
3TheMetamorphosesis cited throughoutfrom R. Ehwald, editor,Ovidius II (Leipzig 1915).
4Metamorphoses2.412, 5.444. See FranzB'omer,P. OvidiusNaso, Metamorphosen,Kommentar (Heidelberg 1976) 42.
135
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Louis A. PERRAUD
136
Taliadiversa nequiquamsede locuti
Sub noctem dixere 'vale' .
.
. (78-79)
The phrase sub noctem dixere vale refers to the end of a specific
conversation,but the typical characterof the words actuallycited is preserved
by the talia in the preceding clause: "Havingspoken such things, they said
farewell ..." The words attributedto the lovers in this frame, therefore,are
intended to create a total picture of their courtship, rather than a specific
moment in it, and to be a definitive portrayalof the love which had such sad
consequences.
In this speech there are no mutual avowals, no direct expression of the
lovers' feelings for each other. Instead, they recite in unison an apostropheto
the wall through which they are supposed to be speaking. The use of
apostrophe in place of genuine dialogue here is the perfect rhetorical
dramatizationof their plight. As their kisses are blocked by the wall (cf.
oscula . . . non pervenientia contra, 80), so are their words, for the lovers
addressthem to the barrierbetween themselves ratherthanto each other.The
echoes of paraklausithyrain their speech reinforce the sense of separation
created by Ovid's use of apostrophe.5They first denounce (73-75) then
placate (76-77) the wall, as the lover of Tibullus 1.2 first denounces (6-8)
then placates (9-14) the gate of his mistress' house. Pyramus and Thisbe
attemptto persuadethe wall thatthe passage they seek from it is a small favor
(74), as the lover of Amores 1.6 attempts to persuade the keeper of his
mistress' gates that it is a small favorto open them (2-3). Their happinessat
their words' penetratinga crack in the wall (76-77) is as intense as the lover's
wish in Propertius1.16 that his words could penetratea crack in his mistress'
gate (17-18). The use in this speech of an apostropheattributedto both lovers,
in which they engage in a kind of verbal mimicry of their physical situation
insteadof addressingeach other, filled out with echoes from the poetry of the
exclusus amator, thus creates an indelible pictureof the love of Pyramusand
Thisbe as a state of painful separation.
Although the lovers do not address each other directly during their
courtship, they do so more than once in the soliloquies which precede their
respective suicides. In these speeches, the apostrophesthey direct to each
other serve to emphasizethe isolation of the speaker,and his or her separation
from the other lover. The conscious use of direct address to underline the
absence of the partnerwho is called on can be seen in the carefultiming with
which Ovid introducesPyramus'invocation of Thisbe in the first part of his
suicide speech. When Pyramushas recognized Thisbe's bloodied scarf, his
thoughtsturn firstto the fate they will soon share:one night will destroy two
lovers (' .
. una duos' inquit 'nox perdet amantes . . .' 108). That a common
destiny will be the lot of both lovers is emphasized by the striking
juxtapositionof una andduos at the beginningof the clause. However, almost
in the same breath(in fact, in the subordinateclause of the same sentence),
SParallelpassages, together with literatureon paraklausithyra, are cited in Bomer (note 4)
42-43.
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AMATORES
ExCLUSI
137
Pyramus' thoughts turn from their shared fate to their different roles in the
tragedy,and then, as he acknowledges his own responsibility,he switches to
the first person: "of the two lovers, she was by far the worthierto live. My
soul is guilty" (109-10). It is just at this point, where the themes of absence
and loss are at the center of Pyramus' (and the reader's) attention, that he
begins to address her as if she were present:ego te, miseranda, peremi, he
says (110). The strong suggestion of conversationcreatedby the juxtaposition
of ego and te, and by the use of the vocative miseranda, is immediately
deflated by theperemi: Pyramusis talkingto the very person whose death (he
thinks) he has just caused. This dissonance between form and content sounds
still more harshlyas Pyramusapologizes to the absentThisbe for his failureto
meet her: "I orderedyou to come at night to a place full of fear, and did not
get here firstmyself" (111-12). His addressto the dead girl echoes in a void of
absence, loss and guilt, where it sounds with ironic emphasis.
The apostrophewhich ends Pyramus'suicide speech ingeniously variesthis
ironic emphasis, for instead of addressingThisbe as if she were absent, he
addressesThisbe's scarf as if it were Thisbe herself. This conceit firstappears
in the elaborate pantomime which introduces his words. He picks up the
bloodied scarf and carries it to the shade of the mulberry,much as Cephalus
will carry the dying Procrisinto the shade at Metamorphoses7.847-48.6 He
lavishes on it the tears and kisses (lacrimas . . . oscula, 117) which Thisbe
will laterbestow on his own corpse (lacrimis . . fletum.. . oscula, 140-41).
He then announces to the veil his resolve to commit an expiatory suicide:
accipe nunc nostri quoque sanguinis haustus (118).
Pyramus' treatment of Thisbe's scarf as a surrogate for Thisbe herself
dramatizeshis loss of its owner. His separationfrom even her corpse at the
moment of her supposed death is illustratedby the visual metonymy of his
carryingthe veil insteadof her body, of bestowing on it the tearsand kisses of
which she is the properrecipient. The sense of loss createdby the incongruity
between his actions and their object is intensifiedby the apostrophein which
Pyramus offers his final tributeto the girl's scarf in lieu of the girl herself.
That he can bestow his life's blood only on a mere relic of his mistress
dramatizes the frustrationof Pyramus' loss, even as he expresses the fatal
resolution which that frustrationprompts.7
Thisbe's discovery of the dying Pyramusbrings the lovers face to face for
the firstand only time in the poem, and the words which she utterson seeing
him are the only ones directly spoken by either lover to the other. Given their
syntax and their content, they might be termed a direct address about direct
address:she uses Pyramus'name twice (142, 143), and, indeed, calls attention
6Forthe resemblancebetween the Pyramusepisode and the Procrisepisode see Otis (note 1);
G. K. Galinsky, Ovid's Metamorphoses,an Introductionto the Basic Aspects (Berkeley 1975)
150-51, gives an accountof their differences which presupposesthe basic similaritiespointedout
by Otis.
7Thedepiction of Pyramus'frustrationruns even deeper if, as CharlesSegal maintains,blood
is a symbol of sexuality throughout the episode. See Charles Segal, Landscape in Ovid's
Metamorphoses(Wiesbaden1969) 50.
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138
Louis A. PERRAUD
to the fact that she is doing so (tua te carissima Thisbe nominat, 144-45),
repeatedlyurging him to respond(responde . . . exaudi . . . vultusque . . .
attolle, 143-44). By its very urgency this direct addressemphasizesPyramus'
inability to reply, and the featurewhich appearsto approachthe conventions
of conversation, the repetitionof his name, emphasized by a hiatus in both
cases, in fact imitatesthe ritualconclamatioin which the dead were mourned,
as the use of the verbclamavit(142) to describeThisbe's deliveryof the words
furtherindicates.8 Her apostropheto Pyramus thus conveys her anguished
sense of havinglost him already.Ovid does not give Pyramus,as his does the
dying Procris(Metamorphoses7.852-56), a farewell speech to recite to his
beloved. Instead, he is made to perish in a mannerdeliberatelyevocative of
the silent isolation of Dido's death in Aeneid 4. Like Dido, he struggles to
raise his death-ladeneyes (oculos iam morte gravatos erexit, 145-46; cf. Illa
gravis oculos conata attollere rursus, Aeneid 4.688). When they have found
his mistress, he dies as wordlessly as Dido when her eyes have found the sky
(Aeneid 4.691-93). This strangulatedresponse, together with the mournful
apostrophewhich evokes it, keeps the emotional isolation of the lovers intact,
and sharpensthe pathetic irony of their meeting only at the moment of their
final separation.
After the deathof Pyramus,Thisbe expresses her pain at their separationin
an apostropheto his corpse which echoes the words he addressedto her upon
discoveringthat she was missing and presumablydead. In syntax, diction and
general feeling Thisbe's apostrophe '. .. tua te manus' inquit 'amorque/
Perdidit, infelix!' 148-49), undoubtedlyrecalls the words immediately preceding Pyramus' earlier apostrophe to her: 'una duos' inquit 'nox perdet
amantes . . .' (108). Despite these similarities,Thisbe's speech presentstheir
separationfrom a different perspective from his earlier one, for instead of
deploringthe loss she has sustained, as he did, she rejects it. Her realization
that his love for her has drivenhim to suicide leads Thisbe to resolve that her
love for Pyramuswill give her the strengthto follow him (150-51), that she
will be the companion as well as the cause of his death (151-52), and that
death, the one thing that could separatethem, shall not do so (152-53).
The basic incongruitycreatedby the use of apostrophein Pyramus'suicide
speech--the lover addresses the dead beloved as if still alive-is present in
Thisbe's final words to Pyramus, but there is a new unity between the
rhetoricalform of her speech and its content. Instead of obliquely accentuating the isolation of the lovers with the contradictoryillusion of dialogue and
presence, as it did in Pyramus' speech, the apostrophe confirms Thisbe's
refusal to accept her parting from Pyramus, for her denial that death can
separatethem accordsperfectlywith a rhetoricalform which proceedsas if he
were present. Her last words to the boy, therefore,may be seen as a resolution
8B'bmer(note 4) 60. The resemblance to a triple conclamatio actually is completed in the
narrativewhich immediatelyfollows Thisbe's speech, for the nominativePyramusat 146 supplies
the third appearanceof the name of the deceased. Ritual mourning, however, has already been
firmly and vividly suggested by the speech itself.
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139
AMATORES
ExcLusI
of the dissonance createdby theirprevious apostrophesto or abouteach other.
The contradictionsof their addressingthe wall between them insteadof each
other, of Pyramus addressing the missing Thisbe and Thisbe the dead
Pyramus, are resolved in Thisbe's announcementto her dead lover that there
can be no insuperablebarrierbetween them.
LOUISA. PERRAUD
Universityof Idaho
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