Pyramus and Thisbe lyrics

"Pyramus and Thisbe, he the loveliest of boys,
She the most beautiful girl in the East,
Lived next door to each other in the steep city
They say Semiramis encircled with walls of brick.
Proximity led to their early acquaintance;
Love grew with time; and they would have married,
But their parents forbade it. What they could not forbid
Was the mutual passion they felt for each other.
There was no go-between; their talk was nods and gesturеs,
And the more the firе was covered, the hotter it burned.
There was a slender crack in the common wall
Between the two houses, from when they were built.
No one had noticed this crack in all these years—
But what does love not see? You lovers discovered it
And made it a channel for speech. Your loving words
Would slip safely through it in the softest whispers.

Often, when they had moved into place, Thisbe here,
Pyramus there, and each had felt the other's breath,
They would say, 'Jealous wall, why do you stand
Between lovers? Would it be asking too much
For you to let us embrace, or at least open enough
To allow us to kiss? Not that we are ungrateful.
We owe it to you, we admit, that our words
Have passage to the ears that long to hear them?
So they would talk in frustrated separation,
And when night came on they said 'Good-bye,'
Each pressing their lips on one side of the wall,
Kisses that did not go through to the other side.
The next dawn had banished the stars of night,
The sun's rays had dried the frosty grass,
And the lovers came to their accustomed place.
After many whispered complaints the pair decided
That they would try to slip past their guardians
In the still of night, and when they were outdoors
They would leave the city as well. And they agreed,
So as not to be wandering around in the fields,
To meet at Ninus' tomb and hide under its tree.
The tree there was full of snow-white berries,
A tall mulberry tree next to a cool spring.
They liked the plan. The light seemed to last forever,
Then sank into the waters from which night arose.
Stealthily cracking open the door Thisbe sneaks out
Through the shadows with veiled head, comes to the tomb
And sits beneath the appointed tree. Love made her bold.

But now here comes a lioness, her jaws smeared
With the blood of cattle she's just killed, on her way
To slake her thirst at the spring. Babylonian Thisbe
Sees her far of by the light of the moon
And runs on trembling feet into a dark cave,
And as she runs her cloak slips off her back.
When the savage lioness has drunk her fill
She turns back to the woods and happens upon
The cloak (without the girl in it) and shreds it
In her bloody jaws. Coming out a little later,
Pyramus sees the tracks the lioness left
In the deep dust. The color drains from his face,
And when he finds the cloak too, smeared with blood,
'One night,' he cries, 'will be the death of two lovers,
But of the two she was more deserving of life,
And mine has done all the harm. I have destroyed you,
Poor girl, telling you to come by night to this place
Full of terror, and not coming first myself!
Come and tear my body apart, devour my flesh,
Gulp down my guilty heart with your savage jaws,
O all of you lions who have lairs in this cliff!
But it is cowardly just to pray for death.'
He picked up Thisbe's cloak and carried it
To the shade of the trysting-tree. And while
He kissed and shed tears upon the garment
He knew so well, he cried, 'Drink my blood too!'
Drawing the sword that hung by his waist,
He drove it down deep into his flank, then, dying,
Withdrew it from the hot wound. As he lay
Stretched out on the earth his blood spurted high,
Just as when a lead pipe has sprung a leak
At a weak spot, and through the hissing fissure
Long jets of water shoot far in the air.
The fruit on the tree, sprinkled with Pyramus' blood,
Turned dark; and the tree's roots, soaked with his gore,
Dyed the mulberries the same purple color.

And now Thisbe, still afraid, but anxious too
That her lover will miss her, comes back from the cave,
Seeking Pyramus with her eyes and her soul
And excited to tell him about her brush with death.
She recognizes the place and the shape of the tree,
But the color of the fruit makes her wonder
If this is really it. While she hesitates, she sees
A body writhing on the blood-soaked ground.
She stepped back, her face paler than boxwood,
Shivering like the sea when a light breeze
Grazes its surface, but when, a moment later,
She recognized her lover, she slapped her guiltless arms
In loud lamentation and tore her hair out,
And holding his beloved body she filed his wounds
With her tears, mingling them with his blood,
And as she kissed his cold lips, she wailed,
'Pyramus, what happened, what took you from me?
Answer me, Pyramus. It's your dearest Thisbe
Calling you. Please listen, please lift up your head?
At Thisbe's name, Pyramus lifted his eyes,
Heavy with death, saw her, and closed them again.
Then she noticed her cloak, and saw his ivory scabbard
Without his sword in it, and said, "Your own hand,
And your love, killed you, poor boy. I, too, have a hand
Brave for this one deed; I too have love, and it will give me
The strength to face wounds. I will follow you in death,
And I will be called the most wretched cause
And companion of your death. Death alone
Could tear you from me, but not even death will.
And I pray to my wretched parents and to his
On behalf of both of us: do not begrudge
A common tomb to those whom faithful love
And death's final hour have joined. And you, O tree,
Whose branches now cover one pitiful body
And soon will cover two, keep our death's tokens
And always have fruit that si dark and mournful
As a memorial to the blood that we both shed.'
She spoke, and placing the point beneath her breast
She fel onto the blade, still warm with her lover's blood.
Her prayers touched the gods and touched their parents,
For mulberries turn dark red when they ripen,
And the lovers' ashes rest in a single urn."