Read the excerpts from Ovid’s "Pyramus and Thisbe" and Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. "Pyramus and Thisbe" "Now this same night
will see two lovers lose their lives: she was the one more worthy of long life: it's I who bear the guilt for this. O my poor girl, it's I who led you to your death; I said you were to reach this fearful place by night; I let you be the first who would arrive. O all you lions with your lairs beneath this cliff, come now, and with your fierce jaws feast upon my wretched guts! But cowards talk as I do—longing for their death but not prepared to act.” At that he gathered up the bloody tatters of his Thisbe's shawl and set them underneath the shady tree where he and she had planned to meet. He wept and cried out as he held that dear shawl fast: "Now drink from my blood, too!” And then he drew his dagger from his belt and thrust it hard into his guts. Romeo and Juliet Romeo: O my love! my wife! Death, that hath suck'd the honey of thy breath, Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty: Thou art not conquer'd; beauty's ensign yet Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks, And death's pale flag is not advanced there. Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet? O, what more favour can I do to thee, Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain To sunder his that was thine enemy? Forgive me, cousin! Ah, dear Juliet, Why art thou yet so fair? shall I believe That unsubstantial death is amorous, And that the lean abhorred monster keeps Thee here in dark to be his paramour? For fear of that, I still will stay with thee; And never from this palace of dim night Depart again: here, here will I remain With worms that are thy chamber-maids; O, here Will I set up my everlasting rest, And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last! Arms, take your last embrace! and, lips, O you The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss A dateless bargain to engrossing death! Come, bitter conduct, come, unsavoury guide! Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark! Here's to my love! [Drinks.] O true apothecary! Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die. [Dies.] Which statement best describes the similarity between these excerpts? Both men place blame upon the women they love. Both men express hope that the women will recover. Both men give dying tributes to the women they love. Both men criticize society for denying them their loves.
