Editing Pyramus and Thisbe (section)

==Adaptations==
[[Image:Gregorio Pagani Píramo y Tisbe Óleo sobre lienzo. 239 x 180 cm. Galería de los Uffizi. Florencia.jpeg|left|thumb|''Pyramus and Thisbe'' by [[Gregorio Pagani]]. [[Uffizi Gallery]].]]
The story of ''Pyramus and Thisbe'' appears in [[Giovanni Boccaccio]]'s ''[[On Famous Women]]'' as biography number twelve (sometimes thirteen)<ref>Virginia Brown's translation of Giovanni Boccaccio's ''Famous Women'', pp. 27-30; Harvard University Press 2001; {{ISBN|0-674-01130-9}}</ref> and in his ''[[Decameron]]'', in the fifth story on the seventh day, where a desperate housewife falls in love with her neighbor, and communicates with him through a crack in the wall, attracting his attention by dropping pieces of stone and straw through the crack.

In the 1380s, [[Geoffrey Chaucer]], in his ''[[The Legend of Good Women]]'', and [[John Gower]], in his ''[[Confessio Amantis]]'', were the first to tell the story in [[English language|English]]. Gower altered the story somewhat into a [[cautionary tale]]. John Metham's ''[[Amoryus and Cleopes]]'' (1449) is another early English adaptation.

The tragedy of ''[[Romeo and Juliet]]'' ultimately sprang from Ovid's story. Here the [[star-crossed]] lovers cannot be together because Juliet has been engaged by her parents to another man and the two families hold an ancient grudge. As in Pyramus and Thisbe, the mistaken belief in one lover's death leads to consecutive suicides. The earliest version of ''Romeo and Juliet'' was published in 1476 by [[Masuccio Salernitano]], while it mostly obtained its present form when written down in 1524 by [[Luigi da Porto]]. Salernitano and Da Porto both are thought to have been inspired by Ovid and Boccaccio's writing.<ref>{{cite book |last= Prunster |first= Nicole|date=2000|title= Romeo and Juliet Before Shakespeare: Four Early Stories of Star-crossed Love|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=qAtaTo_h4Y4C|location= Toronto|publisher= Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies|isbn=0772720150}}</ref> [[Shakespeare]]'s most famous 1590s adaptation is a dramatization of [[Arthur Brooke (poet)|Arthur Brooke]]'s 1562 poem ''[[The Tragical History of Romeus and Juliet]]'', itself a translation of a French translation of Da Porto's novella.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://knarf.english.upenn.edu/EtAlia/mnd51.html|title=A Midsummer Night's Dream, Act 5, Scene 1|website=knarf.english.upenn.edu}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/msnd/context/literary/shakespeare-ovid-and-the-adaptation-of-pyramus-and-thisbe/|title=A Midsummer Night's Dream: Literary Context Essay|website=SparkNotes}}</ref>

In Shakespeare's ''[[A Midsummer Night's Dream]]'' (Act V, sc 1), a comedy written in the 1590s, a group of "[[Mechanical (character)|mechanicals]]" enact the story of "Pyramus and Thisbe". Their production is crude and, for the most part, badly done until the final monologues of [[Nick Bottom]], as Pyramus and [[Francis Flute]], as Thisbe. The theme of forbidden love is also present in the main plot of ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' (albeit in a less tragic and dark representation) in that a girl, [[Hermia]], is not able to marry the man she loves, [[Lysander (Shakespeare)|Lysander]], because her father [[Egeus]] despises him and wishes for her to marry [[Demetrius (A Midsummer Night's Dream)|Demetrius]], and meanwhile Hermia and Lysander are confident that [[Helena (A Midsummer Night's Dream)|Helena]] is in love with Demetrius.

[[The Beatles]] performed a humorous performance of "Pyramus and Thisbe" on the 1964 television special ''[[Around the Beatles]]''. Primarily based around William Shakespeare's adaptation, the performance featured [[Paul McCartney]] as Pyramus, [[John Lennon]] as his lover Thisbe, [[George Harrison]] as Moonshine, and [[Ringo Starr]] as Lion, with [[Trevor Peacock]] in the role of Quince.

Spanish poet [[Luis de Góngora]] wrote a ''Fábula de Píramo y Tisbe'' in 1618, while French poet [[Théophile de Viau]] wrote ''Les amours tragiques de Pyrame et Thisbée'', a tragedy in five acts, in 1621.

In 1718 [[Giuseppe Antonio Brescianello]] wrote his only opera, ''La Tisbe'', for Württemberg court. [[François Francoeur]] and [[François Rebel]] composed ''Pirame et Thisbé'', a lyric tragedy in five acts and a prologue, with [[libretto]] by [[Jean-Louis-Ignace de La Serre]]; it was played at the Académie royale de musique, on October 17, 1726. The story was adapted by [[John Frederick Lampe]] as a "Mock Opera" in 1745, containing a singing "Wall" which was described as "the most musical partition that was ever heard."<ref>Recorded on Hyperion Records, CDA66759</ref> In 1768 in [[Vienna]], [[Johann Adolph Hasse]] composed a serious opera on the tale, titled ''[[Piramo e Tisbe]]''.

[[Edmond Rostand]] adapted the tale, making the fathers of the lovers conspire to bring their children together by pretending to forbid their love, in ''Les Romanesques'',<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.playbill.com/article/harvey-schmidt-fantasticks-composer-dies-at-88|title=Harvey Schmidt, Fantasticks Composer, Dies at 88 {{!}} Playbill|website=Playbill|language=en|access-date=2018-09-13}}</ref> whose 1960 musical adaptation, ''[[The Fantasticks]],'' became the world's longest-running musical.

Pyramus and Thisbe were featured in ''[[The Simpsons]]'' 2012 episode "[[The Daughter Also Rises]]". Nick and Lisa's misunderstood love was compared to Thisbe and Pyramus' forbidden love. Much like the crack in the wall, Lisa and Nick met through a crack between two booths in an Italian restaurant. Lisa and Nick are portrayed as the two characters during a later portion of the episode. They go to finish off their story and head for the tree under which Pyramus and Thisbe's fate presented itself.

[[Bolu Babalola]] adapted the story of Pyramus and Thisbe in her 2020 anthology ''Love in Color: Mythical Tales from Around the World, Retold.'' In this version Pyramus and Thisbe are college students living next door to each other in an old college dorm with a crack in the wall. Unlike in the original myth, their story ends with them happily together.