Read the excerpts from Ovid’s "Pyramus and Thisbe" and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
"Pyramus and Thisbe”
She recognized
her own shawl and his dagger's ivory sheath.
She cried: "Dear boy, you died by your own hand:
your love has killed you. But I, too, command
the force to face at least this task: I can
claim love, and it will give me strength enough
to strike myself.
I'll follow you in death;
and men will say that I—unfortunate—
was both the cause and comrade of your fate.
Nothing but death could sever you from me;
but now death has no power to prevent
my joining you. I call upon his parents
and mine; I plead for him and me—do not
deny to us—united by true love,
who share this fatal moment—one same tomb.
And may you, mulberry, whose boughs now shade
one wretched body and will soon shade two,
forever bear these darkly colored fruits
as signs of our sad end, that men remember
the death we met together.”
Romeo and Juliet
Gregory: Say better; here comes one of my master's kinsmen.
Sampson: Yes, better, sir.
Abraham: You lie.
Sampson: Draw, if you be men.--Gregory, remember thy swashing blow.
[They fight.]
[Enter BENVOLIO.]
Benvolio: Part, fools! put up your swords; you know not what you do.
[Beats down their swords.]
How is the setting from Ovid’s "Pyramus and Thisbe" similar to Romeo and Juliet?
Both take place in servants’ quarters.
Both take place in castles ruled by unjust leaders.
Both take place in towns in which violence is discouraged.
Both take place in time periods in which men carry weapons.
