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 You may never have heard of
Pyramus and Thisbe, but I’ll bet you’ve heard of Romeo and Juliet. You know the
story: they were young, and in love, but their parents wouldn’t let them marry,
because their families were enemies.
Well, the story of Pyramus and Thisbe dates
back a little further, but these two lovers had a similar problem: they were
young, and in love, and their parents wouldn’t let them marry, because…
actually the reason isn’t part of the story: so let’s conclude it doesn’t
matter. What matters is that they share a passionate romantic love that means
more to them than what their parents think.
One night, Pyramus and Thisbe sneak
out of their homes to meet in secret beneath the mulberry tree. Thisbe gets
there first, but sees a lion covered in the blood of a recent kill, and runs
away, dropping an article of clothing. By the time Pyramus shows up, the lion is
gone, but the lion’s tracks are clear to see, as is that article of Thisbe’s clothing,
torn by the lion and covered in blood.
Pyramus concludes that Thisbe is dead,
and knows whose fault it is – who failed to keep Thisbe safe. Awash in shame, Pyramus
takes a dagger, point-to-chest, and plunges it deep – a fountain of blood
rushes the air and soaks the white mulberries red. Thisbe returns, finds
Pyramus, and realizes what has happened. No less willing to die for true love,
Thisbe takes the same dagger and once again colors red with blood the mulberry
tree. So ends the tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe, both of them dead, but their
love eternal.
This story, as told by the Roman poet Ovid (43 BCE – 17 CE), is offered as an explanation for why
mulberries turn from pure snowy white to deep blood red as they ripen. We can
imagine, once a year, as the mulberries turn edible and sweet, mothers telling
daughters and sons of the bloody fate of Pyramus and Thisbe – a warning to obey
your parents, a warning against the folly of romantic love.
Wait
a second: why would mothers warn their children against romantic love? Isn’t love, true love, romantic love, what
life is all about? Well, maybe it is today, but the meaning of marriage ain’t
what it used to be. The loud-talking political “right” in America speaks of
“traditional marriage” as though it is a positive thing, static and unchanged
over time, and speaks of “threats” to traditional marriage as though these are
ills particular to our modern world, invading for the first time the happy land
of marriage which, for thousands of years, has been an unchanging fertile field
of wholesome safety and contentment. But this scenario is a fantasy. Romantic
love was “traditionally” treated as a great evil, a wicked temptation. Now it
is considered the most essential and fulfilling element of a life.
The
meaning of marriage has never been
what it used to be. It has changed to meet the needs of the time and place,
throughout history. What most people are referring to when they talk about
“traditional marriage” today seems to be the unrealistic and unrepresentative
ideals of marriage that appeared during the American 1950s, when post-WWII
prosperity and the advent of television colluded to create a stunningly
artificial America
in black-and-white.
The ideals depicted at that time were little more than
social propaganda, and believing they were true would be like someone 100 years
from now taking the “Caveman” commercials and TV show as evidence that
Neanderthals walked the Earth in the early 21st Century. These
ideals depict an idea of marriage that was far outside the real-world norms and
trends of marriage, even then.
Marriages
throughout history fluctuate in their meaning, purpose, and permanence. Who
would want to be one of the six wives of Henry VIII of England, pressed with the charge of
producing a male child? By the time his (female) child, Elizabeth I was queen,
we know that the upper classes were having their marriages secured by the
church and the lower classes (without titles or property to protect) were
having non-church parties down at the pub, calling themselves “married,” and
doing it all over if it didn’t work out and they met someone new.
Today we tend to put a lot of stock in a “church wedding,” but in the Elizabethan
Era, a church marriage just provided the same security that a pre-nuptual
agreement provides today. And today we regard marriages prefaced with a pre-nup
as the doomed conjugation of a scheming gold-digger to an easily-seduced rich
fool – not a “real” marriage at all, because, today, a real marriage is about love.
Today
we would consider “more real” the informal pub-hosted marriage of a couple of
low-class Britons from 1595 than a lavish state wedding between a prince and
princess that was arranged when the princess was two years old. We would consider
the pub-marriage of those two Britons “more real” than the show-marriage of a
couple of Hollywood celebrities, so long as those
Britons truly loved one another. We would consider the love of those lowly
Brits more real than a marriage between a Wall Street mogul and a model half
his age, requiring a 30-page pre-nup to protect his fortune.
Today we value
love, true love. True love is the meaning and purpose of modern marriage, and
if a modern marriage is going to last forever, it is because true love is
eternal, not because of political or social or financial or religious or even
reproductive considerations. The day of the parents has passed, and today the red
of those mulberries is not the terrifying blood-red intended, but the dark
complexion of a sweeter fruit. Today, marriage belongs to the Romeos and Juliets,
and Pyramuses and Thisbes. Today, marriage is about love.
Marriage
being about love is not only new, it represents the triumph of the radicals.
Pyramus and Thisbe were young and in love, but back then, marriage wasn’t about
love, it was about strategic alliances between families, the distribution of
land and wealth – in short, marriage was about politics. Their parents seem
cold and callous to us now, but our values are have changed.
People today are
inclined to see the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, and Romeo and Juliet, as
having an un-necessarily, un-happy ending – instead of the necessarily unhappy ending that was
originally intended. Back then, people who put love above more practical
concerns were considered bad people who needed to be punished, and the stories
reflected this. Over thousands of years, our minds have changed about this: we
no longer think they should be punished, but praised. This is a real,
long-term, almost world-wide cultural change in how we think of love, and
marriage.
Now
ask yourself, which do you prefer? Do you want to live in world in which people
set love aside and marry for money, property, social and political connections,
and so on? Or do you want to live in a world where we marry for love? Do you want to marry someone for money,
society, and so on, or do you want to marry for love? This is a question of
values, and our modern values are very clear: almost everyone will answer that
love is the morally superior motivation. Almost everyone will answer that love
is the reason and the answer. And that is why same-sex marriage is a welcome
reality of the modern world. Because while society and politicians may have
opinions about whether a boy “ought to” love a boy, or a girl “ought to” love a
girl, we all want marriage to be based on love, and sometimes a boy truly loves
a boy; sometimes a girl truly loves a girl.
Scroll back up
and read the story of Pyramus and Thisbe again. I never told you if Pyramus
were male or female; never told you if Thisbe were female or male. Does it make
a difference? Would the story be any more or less meaningful if both Pyramus
and Thisbe were male? Would it be any more or less tragic if both Pyramus and
Thisbe were female? Of course not. Because romantic love isn’t about creating a
bond of blood between two families with a child. It isn’t about peopling the
Earth (the Earth is already pretty well over-peopled!) with children. It’s
about love. So all that matters is that Pyramus and Thisbe were in love.
The
phrase, “the love that dare not speak its name” became famous when the
Anglo-Irish playwright Oscar Wilde found himself on trial for homosexuality in
the 1890s (he was imprisoned for the offense, and died shortly after his
release, the jailing having severely affected his health). But the phrase is
not Wilde’s. It comes from a poem by Lord Alfred Douglas in which he describes
two personifications of Love together in a garden – one which insists on
calling the other Shame and claims
himself the only true Love.
…
I cried, 'Sweet youth,
Tell me why, sad and sighing, thou dost rove
These pleasent realms? I pray thee speak me sooth
What is thy name?' He said, 'My name is Love.'
Then straight the first did turn himself to me
And cried, 'He lieth, for his name is Shame,
But I am Love, and I was wont to be
Alone in this fair garden, till he came
Unasked by night; I am true Love, I fill
The hearts of boy and girl with mutual flame.'
Then sighing, said the other, 'Have thy will,
I am the love that dare not speak its name.'
- from “Two Loves,” Lord Alfred Douglas,
1894
This is the plight that Pyramus
and Thisbe faced: their parents found their bond shameful. They wished to marry
for romantic love instead of following the wishes of their parents – for shame!
This was the plight Romeo and Juliet faced: shame, for loving passionately the
“enemy.”
In America,
in the 1960s, people who married others of different faiths and races were
considered “shameful” by those who did not approve. And today, young lovers
who are the same sex find their love being called shame, just the same.
But
a love that dare not speak its name is still a love, even if others do cry
“shame.” We know that when a Jew loves a Gentile, and they marry, that is a
blessing. When a European-American loves an African-American, and they marry,
that is a beautiful thing. We have seen that their love, which some called
“shame,” is in fact love.
Today, some see two women holding hands, two men
kissing one another, and they think “shame” – but they are wrong, wrong as the
name-caller in the poem. In fact, Pyramus was a boy, and Thisbe was a girl, but
it doesn’t matter, any more than it matters exactly why their parents
disapproved.
If we want to live in a world that is guided by love, in which the
pursuit of love is deeply felt and meaningful, we must embrace the love of all.
The parents of Pyramus and Thisbe seem to us cold, callous, unfeeling. The old
lesson was that disobeying your parents will lead to tragedy. But this is a new
age, and the new lesson is this: open your heart and your home to the object of
your child’s love, or you may very well lose him. Or her. (The gender really
doesn’t matter.)
Amy Letter writes
fiction and poetry, and teaches creative writing and literature at Florida Atlantic University.
She holds an MFA from the University of Arkansas. Her work has recently been
featured in Fringe, Story South, Perigee, Louisiana Literature, and ACED Magazine.
She is also a regular contributor to Incertus,
a blog on literature and politics at http://incertus.blogspot.com.
References: Richard Shenkman’s Legends Lies and
Cherished Myths of World History (1994) has more on how naughty people
really were in the “good old days.”
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