to the voice; and tender messages used to pass backward and
forward through the gap. As they stood, Pyramus on this side,
Thisbe on that, their breaths would mingle. "Cruel wall," they
said, "why do you keep two lovers apart? But we will not be
ungrateful. We owe you, we confess, the privilege of transmitting
loving words to willing ears." Such words they uttered on
different sides of the wall; and when night came and they must say
farewell, they pressed their lips upon the wall, she on her side,
he on his, as they could come no nearer.

Next morning, when Aurora had put out the stars, and the sun had
melted the frost from the grass, they met at the accustomed spot.
Then, after lamenting their hard fate, they agreed, that next
night, when all was still, they would slip away from watchful
eyes, leave their dwellings and walk out into the fields; and to
insure a meeting, repair to a well-known edifice standing without
the city's bounds, called the Tomb of Ninus, and that the one who
came first should await the other at the foot of a certain tree.
It was a white mulberry tree, and stood near a cool spring. All
was agreed on, and they waited impatiently for the sun to go down
beneath the waters and night to rise up from them. Then cautiously
Thisbe stole forth, unobserved by the family, her head covered
with a veil, made her way to the monument and sat down under the
tree. As she sat alone in the dim light of the evening she
descried a lioness, her jaws reeking with recent slaughter,
approaching the fountain to slake her thirst. Thisbe fled at the
sight, and sought refuge in the hollow of a rock. As she fled she
dropped her veil. The lioness after drinking at the spring turned
to retreat to the woods, and seeing the veil on the ground, tossed
and rent it with her bloody mouth.