Question

Read the excerpt from Ovid’s "Pyramus and Thisbe".

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

What statement best describes the use of poetic elements in the excerpt?

A simile compares a tree to death.
A tree is given symbolic meaning.
Thisbe delivers a rhythmic song.
Ovid uses patterned rhyme.

Answer 1

A tree is given symbolic meaning.

The mulberry is used as a symbol of the lovers' tragic end (its dark fruit standing for their deaths), rather than a simile, song, or patterned rhyme.