ABSTRACT
Dante refers directly to the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe twice in the Comedy, once in Purgatorio 27, as the pilgrim is about to enter the garden of earthly paradise to meet Beatrice, and once in Purgatorio 33, when Beatrice rebukes the pilgrim in the garden for the past moral failings which prevent him from understanding her. The references bracket Dante’s reunion with his long-lost Beatrice, and frame his recovery of Eden, lost innocence, and eternal life. I shall argue that these telegraphic references to Pyramus signal the failure of love or understanding through which Eden is lost, and thus point to the Christic revelation through which Eden, and beatitude, is recovered. In its simplest form, the revelation is that the kingdom of heaven lies within; to seek any good as other is already to have lost it. A good can therefore be lost only by a failure to know oneself; it can be regained only by sacrificing false self-conceptions.
