Shakespeare's Loss of Inspiration: Romeo and Juliet's Uncharted Truth

With a kiss I die whispered Romeo, with a strike I shall fall down grumbled Pyramus. Both had been embraced by the hearts of people. One died millenniums ago, another died centuries ago but what made the agony so hard, same people died twice in different lines...

The misty air of Stratford which surrounded the air of a 16th-century frame house became home to the famous writer William Shakespeare. Later on, his balcony was about to be a station for lovers where many Juliets wait for their Romeos; whose bitter laments unite in the air where the same families' swords cling in the very same air for the lovers' unification. Shakespeare’s writing Romeo and Juliet created a big influence on the English language and literature while his verses united the concepts of love, despair, and many more feelings that love contains in it all around the world.

Between the yellow old dusty pages of Romeo and Juliet which left many tears running down, there was a hidden truth behind the red curtains of the play. In this article, the hidden origin of Romeo and Juliet will be revealed. To make it more clear, they will be explained in three different stages. The origin of the story will be followed up with the literate meanings of the characters’ actions and it will be finalized with the psychiatric personalities hidden under the verses.

Many people know that the origins of Romeo and Juliet stand to Shakespeare’s pen but there is a different story behind it which even Shakespeare himself confirmed. His play Romeo and Juliet's roots trace back to an Italian story which is translated from its origins to English by Arthur Brooke and fit into prose as Palace of Pleasure by William Painter within the official records. Within having been inspired by these two works, Shakespeare created the first forms of Romeo and Juliet. But this information is scantily clarified. The real Romeo and Juliet’s roots belong to Pyramus and Thisbe who were living in Babylon’s city, Semiramis, and their families were in an impertinent under the blood feud. Son and daughter of the two families which were displeased with each other due to the blood feud; they discovered each other by the little fracture in their rooms. As it happens, both families were living under one building which was separated by a wall. They ripped up the stretch and created a hole. This hole became an intercessor for their communication which led to a passionate love that races its lovely thrill with the night until the sun rises. Two lovers who love each other tumbled on each other due to their parents' blood feud and they both decided to run away together. They decided to run to Nineveh, a place outside the city where the Ninsun graveyard is, at midnight. Thisbe who was overwhelmed with his patience decided to arrive earlier than their plan and started to wait for her lover at their meeting point. A lion showed up from the trees with the blood of its prey dripping from its teeth and it started to approach to Pyramus and Thisbe’s meeting point.

Thisbe who had seen the lion got scared and ran towards trees to hide from it while her scarf folded down and dropped on the floor. After finishing its meal, the lion started to play with Thisbe’s scarf as a toy. By that time, Pyramus who had come to meet up with his lover saw Thisbe’s scarf and believed that she had been killed by a lion. After seeing this horrible scene which he thought was of her lover, he felt an unidentifiable agony and took his sword and stabbed himself with it which took his soul out of his body in seconds. After a while, Thisbe got out of her hiding point and saw her lover, covered in blood as dead. She would be grieved for her lover's faith and stabbed herself with the same sword which stole the soul of her lover and died beside him.

Inspirational Pierre Gautherot - Pyramus and Thisbe, 1799

The agony of two lovers that even surrounded the gods with a feeling of sorrow made their families fall into deep pain and regret. This in the end led them to make a peace to end their blood feud. This story, at the date of 8 A.D. takes part in Roman poet Ovid’s book of Metamorphoses which is the first form of Romeo and Juliet in Greek mythology. Ovid’s story on Greek mythology, Thisbe and Pyramus became a cornerstone for many Romeo and Juliet stories years later. After Ovid, a short story called Maritto and Gianozza was written by Masuccio Salernitano in Siena, Italy in 1476. Not even after a century from Salernitano’s work, Luigi da Porto took the lead of Italian short story and re-formed it under the title of Giulietta e Romeo in 1524. It was officially published in 1531 in Venice for the first time. Within the touch of Luigi da Porto, Giulietta e Romeo became the first form of Romeo and Juliet of the pre-16th-century imitator reformists. While Matteo Bandello published his second novel in 1554, he published Giulietta e Romeo’s format and in 1562, Romeo and Juliet’s tragic poem got translated by Arthur Brooke. After Arthur Brooke’s translation, Shakespeare’s interpretation became the last evolution for the tragic agony of the lovers, from the fingers of Shakespeare.