1. AH quotations of Ovid’s Metamorphoses are from the Teubner edition of Anderson, W. S. (Leipzig 1977 Google Scholar).

2. Otis, B., Ovid as an Epic Poet (Cambridge, UK 1970), 154 Google Scholar.

3. I do not, however, subscribe to a sexual interpretation of the story as a whole. In this I differ from Segal, C. P., ‘Narrative Art in the Metamorphoses’ , CJ 66 (1971), 331–37Google Scholar, who interprets the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe as the fusion of ‘a condensed account of two young people passing through the crucial stages of maturation with a symbolical journey into the hidden darkness and danger of that nox silens (84) of sexual experience and adult life’ (333). Following this line of thought, Rhorer, C. C., ‘Red and White in Ovid’s Metamorphoses: The Mulberry Tree in the Tale of Pyramus and Thisbe’, Ramus 9 (1980), 79–88Google Scholar, sees the lovers’ decision to meet at night as a sign of a change in their affection, which is now touched by shame (83). This is to ignore the practical side of the lovers’ arrangement, for most importantly of all, they can escape at night unseen. Furthermore, Rhorer describes Thisbe’s loss of her velamina (101) when she flees the lioness as ‘the rape of her veil… a symbolic violation of her chastity’ (p. 84). But velamina, elsewhere amictus (104) and vestem (107), means cloak, not veil, and the symbolism would work better if the animal in question were male.

4. Cf. Lucretius 4.1049f.: namque omnes plerumque cadunt in vulnus et Mam / emicat in partem sanguis unde icimur ictu (‘For all generally fall towards the wound and the blood spurts towards that part from which the blow struck us’). Two lines later (1052) Lucretius again uses ictus as a metaphor for ejaculation. I am grateful to Dr. Stephen Hinds for pointing out this parallel, and also for his many other invaluable comments on this paper.

5. Galinsky, G. K., Ovid’s Metamorphoses (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1975), 153 Google Scholar. This simile has provoked a variety of contradictory responses. Schmitt-von Mühlenfels, F., Pyramus und Thisbe: Rezeptionstypen eines Ovidischen Stoffes in Literatur, Kunst und Musik (Heidelberg 1972), 22 Google Scholar, sees it as one of the features of the story which reveal Ovid’s charming humour. Other critics ignore or underplay the violent impact of this simile. Thus for Otis (n.2 above), 155, the metamorphosis, of which the simile is an integral part, is ‘slight and inconsequential’.

6. von Albrecht, M., ‘Zur Funktion der Gleichnisse in Ovids Metamorphosen’, Beiträdge zur klassischen Philotogie 72 (1976), 286–88Google Scholar.

7. von Albrecht (n.6 above), 287: ‘Die betönte Nüchternheit, ja Kälte des Vergleiches zwingt den Leser, sich innerlich vom Ereignis zu lösen, dramatische Teilnahme und lyrische Einfühlung (die von ihm soeben noch verlangt worden) zu vergessen und zur epischen Objektivitüt zuruckzukehren.’

8. Otis (n.2 above), 340.

9. Duke, T. T., ‘Ovid’s Pyramus and Thisbe’, CJ 66 (1971), 320–27Google Scholar, provides a thorough discussion of the story’s original versions.

10. Hägg, Thomas, The Novel in Antiquity (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1983), 1–4Google Scholar, argues for referring to these early works of prose fiction as novels rather than romances on the grounds that the former is a less prejudicial term. I prefer to follow Perry, B. E., The Ancient Romances (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1967 CrossRefGoogle Scholar), and retain the term romance, since it immediately connotes the predominant subject matter of love’s trials, erōtika pathēmata.

11. Due, O. S., Changing Forms: Studies in the Metamorphoses of Ovid (Copenhagen 1974), 123–27Google Scholar, points this out along with several other features that the story shares with romance. Due is not concerned with the role of Ovid’s narrator but argues that Ovid is simply playing for ironic effect ‘with the conventions of trivial literature’ (126).

12. A convenient text along with translation of the Ninus romance has been edited by Gaselee, S. in Edmond’s, J. M. Loeb edition of Daphnis and Chloe (London and New York 1916), 382–99Google Scholar. The fragments of the Ninus romance are fully discussed by Perry (n.10 above), 153–67, who first pithily describes the work in the following terms: ‘The puerile romance of Ninus has no patriotic or nationalistic orientation or significance. It relates the private affairs of a pair of teenage lovers chafing under the restraint of middle-class social conventions, anxious above all to get married as soon as possible, if only their mothers can arrange it, and to stay married and together, come what may in the political fortunes of Western Asia and Egypt, which will be arranged to suit the convenience of the lovers and of the romance.’

13. In his commentary on Metamorphoses IV and V (Heidelberg 1976), 46f., F. Bomer argues that Ninus’ tomb has probably been conflated with the tomb of Semiramis which her husband built for her. It was reputedly a famous landmark of enormous size that survived the destruction of the city.

14. Achilles Tatius, Leucippe and Clitophon 3.15; 5.7. Cf. the extracts from Xenophon’s Ephesian Tale quoted in Hägg (n.10 above), 30–32, in which Habrocomes survives crucifixion and being burnt at the stake while Antheia survives being buried alive with gigantic, savage hounds.

15. Chariton, Chaereas and Callirhoe 1.6 and 8. Cf. Achilles Tatius 3.17, where Clitophon is about to kill himself when he suddenly sees two robbers approaching in the moonlight.

16. Heiserman, Arthur, The Novel Before the Novel (Chicago and London 1977), 63 Google Scholar.

17. Hägg (n.10 above), 103:‘. . . the pattern of “love-separation-reunion” is almost a matter of course for an exciting love story with a happy ending; the “searching” motif follows logically from the “separation” motif.’

18. Due (n. 11 above).

19. E. W. Leach, ‘Ekphrasis and the Theme of Artistic Failure in Ovid’s, Metamorphoses’, Ramus 3 (1974), 107–11Google Scholar, discusses the ways in which Ovid’s account of the daughters of Minyas differs from the tradition found in Aelian and Nicander.

20. Thus Leach (n.19 above), 109: ‘Such reservations about love are precisely what might be expected from devotees of the virgin goddess.’

21. Cf. n.4 above.

22. Bömer (n.13 above), 37f., has a lengthy discussion of the importance and fame of the walls of Babylon in the ancient world. In some accounts they were the second of the seven wonders of the world.

23. According to Bomer (n.13 above), 46, the tomb of Semiramis, which Ovid has probably deliberately confused with that of Ninus, was said to be as wide as a fortress, built on an impressively large scale.

24. Rostowzew, M., ‘Die hellenistisch-römische Architekturlandschaft’, Mitteilungen des Kaiserlich Deutschen Archaeologischen Instituts: Röm. Abt. 26 (1911), 38 Google Scholar, emphasises the importance of buildings in the sacral-idyllic landscape and describes the typical structures, particularly those of a religious nature such as tombs. The finest examples of sacral-idyllic landscape are the paintings from Boscotrecase, described by von Blanckenhagen, Peter H. and Alexander, Christine, The Paintings from Boscotrecase (Heidelberg 1962 Google Scholar).

25. Parry, H., ‘Ovid’s Metamorphoses: Violence in a Pastoral Landscape’, TAPA 95 (1964), 268–82Google Scholar, followed by Segal, C. P., Landscape in Ovid’s Metamorphoses: The Transformation of a Literary Symbol (Wiesbaden 1969 Google Scholar), show how the ideal landscape in Ovid’s epic is inevitably the setting for unexpected violence.

26. While I agree with Rhorer (n.3 above) that the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe is one of ‘innocence destroyed by passion, of the dangers that lurk outside the walls of civilization and that threaten lovers who desire to obliterate the physical and spiritual boundaries that separate them’ (84), I would broaden the sphere of reference. ‘The dangers that lurk outside the walls of civilization’ are also within them, and they threaten not only lovers.

27. Segal (n.25 above), 50, suggests that this ‘bathetic simile’ is ‘a self-conscious mockery of the suspenseful and mysteriously symbolic setting which he (Ovid) has created for the first half of the episode’. The simile marks a change in genre and in tone rather than in setting, for it reinforces the technological aspect with its grim parody of the locus amoenus.

28. Contrast Thisbe’s cautionary behaviour: sedpostquam remorata suos cognovit amores (‘but after she delayed she recognised her love’, 137).

29. Galinsky (n.5 above), 128.

30. My view here is contrary to Pöschl, V., ‘Mythologie und Dichtung in den Metamorphosen Ovids’, Acta Philologica Aenipontana, Bd. 1 (Innsbruck 1962), 63 Google Scholar, who sees the series of tales as representing a progressive upswing in love’s fortunes, the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe being the most gloomy. It is hard to interpret the burial alive of Leucothoe, due to jealous, deliberate sniping, as less gloomy than Pyramus’ mistaken suicide.

31. Leach (n.19 above), 107. Ovid’s concern in the Metamorphoses with the problems of the artist’s survival has received recent critical attention by Wise, V. M., ‘Flight Myths in Ovid’s Metamorphoses’ , Ramus 6 (1977), 44–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Segal, C. P., ‘The Magic of Orpheus and the Ambiguities of Language’, Ramus 7 (1978), 106–142CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Lateiner, D., ‘Mythic and Non-Mythic Artists in Ovid’s Metamorphoses ’, Ramus 13 (1984), 1–30CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

32. Ahl, F., Metaformations (Ithaca and London 1985), 225 Google Scholar. In his introduction to chapter 7 (‘Nature Imitating Art’), Ahl suggests (237) that the evolution of humans into deliberate artists is a gradual process in the Metamorphoses, beginning with Deucalion and Pyrrha, the random throwers of stones in Book 1, and culminating with Pygmalion.