In Greek and Roman mythology, Thisbe (Ancient Greek Θίσβη) is the Babylonian maiden who loved Pyramus through a crack in the wall between their fathers' houses. Fleeing a lioness at their night tryst, she dropped her cloak; when she returned to find Pyramus dead by his own sword, she followed him in death, and the gods stained the mulberry forever. This atlas node is the heroine of Ovid's lovers' tale, paired with pyramus.
Adapted from Wikipedia, "Pyramus and Thisbe" · CC BY-SA 4.0
I.Identity
Thisbe and Pyramus grew up in adjoining houses in Semiramis's Babylon. Parental rivalry forbade their wedding, so they spoke through a chink in the party wall and planned a secret meeting at Ninus's tomb. She is the female half of the pair whose blood, in Ovid, dyes the mulberry; a rarer Greek tradition makes her a spring rather than a suicide.
II.Ovid's tale
Thisbe reached the tomb first. A lioness, mouth bloody from a recent kill, drove her into flight; she left her cloak behind. The beast mauled the garment, leaving blood and tracks. Pyramus, arriving later, took the signs for proof of her death and killed himself under the mulberry. Thisbe returned, found him dying, prayed to their parents and the gods for a shared tomb, and stabbed herself with his sword. The gods forever darkened the mulberry's fruit and granted that their ashes rest in one urn.
III.Origins and reception
Ovid's Metamorphoses 4.55–166 is the earliest full surviving narrative; Hyginus lists Thisbe among maidens who died because Pyramus had already slain himself for love of her. Cilician tradition and a Paphos mosaic preserve an alternate metamorphosis into river and spring.
Medieval and early modern writers kept her name beside Pyramus's: Boccaccio, Chaucer, Gower, and the Romeo-and-Juliet tradition of mistaken death. Shakespeare stages a comic Pyramus and Thisbe in A Midsummer Night's Dream; later opera, poetry, and popular culture continue to recycle the forbidden lovers and the wall.