Forbidden by their feuding families to wed, meet or even to speak, Pyramus and Thisbe are forced to converse secretly in the dead of night through a crack in the cellar wall of their adjoining abodes…
~~~~~
“Pyramus, Pyramus! The moon invites us to our sacred, secret place, my love. Let us not waste this precious hour she has granted... Pyramus!”
“I’m here, my nymph, fear not. I had to oversee the whipping of three of my slaves, guilty of insolence.”
“Indeed, I wish you owned me Pyramus and I could call you Lord. To wear a collar of bronze emblazoned with your name and feel your lash upon my flesh would be as sweet to me as honeyed wine running down my throat.”
“Banish the thought, my love…”
“Why? I would prefer it a thousand times over to the living death I’m forced to endure in this accursed house; my youth and beauty wasted on the eyes of dithering, aged fools; my golden voice is as an owl’s screech in their uncouth ears.”
“They are your parents and family, Thisbe.”
“Aye, and I pray to Hecate each night to swiftly bring about their end.”
“Hush that voice now, lest those same vulgar ears should discover us!”
“My lord, your every command inflames my blood. The sorcery of your words sends such strong waves of desire through my limbs and moistens my long-neglected cunt.”
“I too long to end your exile from the world of delicious pleasures into which my famished cock will bring you.”
“I crave it, my bull, my stallion. I yearn to stretch my lips, made wet with dripping nectar by the mere thought of you. To feel your tongue, taste my precious fruit and slide deep into the slit that thirsts for it more than my lungs yearn for the very breath of life.”
“This I crave too, my love, no less than you.”
“And if anyone should stand in our way, anyone, smite them with your sword of bronze and I’ll dispatch them with my stealthy silver dagger.”
“You would have us go so far?”
“And why not? Is it a crime to rob two pairs of old fools of a year or two of life? Or to do away with my boorish brothers when they stand in the way of the object of my worship?”
“The gods forbid it.”
“I care not. Your cock is my only god, I venerate no other. Are you not more beautiful than Apollo himself, with your sculpted muscles and golden hair? Oh Pyramus, how I long to worship you on my knees and to feel your manhood slide between my lips, over my tongue, and fill my throat; a solid, adamantine shaft, hard as only I can temper it.”
“Oh, yes, my love, as you have often done in my dreams.”
“No hole of mine would be denied you. You would be lord and master of my mouth, my fine ass, and my fertile cunt that daily, no, hourly thirsts for your potent seed!”
“Ah Thisbe, as ever, these words, like strong wine, inflame my blood.”
“I long to be at your beck and call, the sole object of your desire; yours alone to fuck. Yes, we will fuck and fuck long and hard, my prince. Picture me nude, adorned with all my costly jewels, my perfect breasts bouncing as I ride your rod, my ebony locks cascading down my back and dancing about my shoulders…”
“Ah. It is truly a divine vision…”
“Watch as my eyes roll back, my breath deepens and my nails dig deep to grip your granite muscles. I come in wave after wave of exquisite pleasure; uttering your name as my talisman. Then I feel you tense inside me and release volley after volley of potent seed; filling my body to its very core. I long to overflow with your come, surpassing even the most brazen of whores!”
“I would build a home for us, oh whore of mine.”
“Aye and in our home would be our sacred grove; to delight us by day with shade, perfume, and colour and, by night with cozy retreats beneath the moon’s ivory light; all to make our torrid, lust-drenched fucking all the more delicious.”
“Seductress, you have long enthralled me!”
“Think on it, my Lord. No obstacle should dare stand in our way. I would have your balls to drain, your cock to milk with my ravenous cunt. I would have you pull my hair as you ride me like you do your mare, Damallis; over hard stones and I would have you whip me as though I was bound to your chariot.”
“Oh, what pleasures await us, my sweet Thisbe.”
“Aye, but I cannot wait forever. Youth and beauty are both fleeting - more insubstantial than the breath that carries our words through this crack.”
“I know it, my love, but I fear the gods who abhor murder and I loathe the Furies that they are sure to set upon us, to pursue and hound us to our dying day.”
“Pretty stories to scare infants into their cots and under their covers.”
“Perhaps…”
“But my body is real, Pyramus, as real as this wall that we have made hot with envy; nightly by lamplight, it sees my faultless beauty, which you cannot. Nightly, it sees your manhood grow at my words and your balls contract and tighten as you listen to my voice; a voice born of a famished mouth that hungers to taste your lips.”
“I know it my eternal desire, my incomparable nymph.”
“I am resolved to bear you many fine sons and fair daughters, Pyramus. The gods, if such there be, demand it as my right.”
“Thus I am resolved; we must both escape tonight. Let us meet in the valley where the tomb of Ninus lies, under the mulberry tree whose welcoming boughs will shelter us while the nearby spring will quench our thirst.”
“My thirst for you is unquenchable.”
“Hush! Away now, prepare yourself and take care that no one sees you.”
“Aye, my lord, at once.”
~~~~~
So it came to pass that Thisbe fled her house first; her slumbering sires, siblings, and servants hearing nothing. After a long and arduous moonlit journey, she reached the tomb of Ninus. But there, by the limpid spring, she surprised a lioness that had come down to drink. The beast was fresh from the kill, with bloodied claws and teeth. It lunged at her, catching the maiden’s scarf and rending it to shreds with its crimson claws. If the lioness had not been heavy with a full belly, Thisbe’s fate would have been sealed. But she was able to flee to the rocks and she hid in a shallow cave to await the beast’s departure.
Now, shortly thereafter, Pyramus arrived and immediately found the bloodstained and ragged scarf. He saw too the muddy prints of the lioness. As horror and anguish overcame him, he drew his good brazen sword and vowed by the gods that he could not live without Thisbe. Beseeching those same gods to forgive Thisbe her blasphemous impiety, he sank the sword deep into his vitals. Dropping to the earth, as life swiftly ebbed from his limbs, he was soon found by his beloved. But it was too late and he died in her arms. Thisbe then drew the sword from his flesh and plunged it into her own. As the poet sings,
From that day unto this, the mulberry ripens red,
Telling of the fate that saw our luckless lovers dead.
One tomb received them both, where the lioness had stood
And on that most mournful day, there came a greater good;
In tears, in grief, their warring kin ratified a truce.
Thus ends the tale of Thisbe and of her Pyramus.
~~~~~
- Greek Erotic Papyri, British Museum - fragment 36400 (circa 325 BC.)
