be.
Hardly a day passed without their meeting, and at last they came to
know and love one another. But when Pyramus sought Thisbe in marriage,
the parents would not hear of it, and even forbade the lovers to meet
or speak to each other any more. But though they could no longer be
openly together, they saw each other at a distance and sent messages
by signs and tokens.

One day to their great delight they discovered a tiny crack in the
wall between the two houses, through which they could hear each other
speak. But a few words whispered through a chink in the wall could not
satisfy two ardent lovers, and they tried to arrange a meeting. They
would slip away one night unnoticed and meet somewhere outside the
city. A spot near the tomb of Ninus was chosen, where a mulberry tree
grew near a pleasant spring of water.

At nightfall Thisbe put on a thick veil, slipped out of the house
unobserved and made her way in haste to the city gates. She was first
at the trysting-place and sat down under the tree to wait for her
lover. A strange noise made her look up, and she saw by the clear
moonlight a lioness with bloody jaws coming to drink at the spring.
Thisbe sprang up, and dropping her cloak in her haste ran to hide
herself in a neighboring cave. The lioness, who had already eaten,
did not care to pursue her, but finding the cloak lying on the ground,
pulled it to bits and left the marks of blood on the torn mantle. Now
Pyramus in his turn came to the place and found no Thisbe, but only
her torn and bloodstained cloak. "Surely," he thought, "some beast
must have devoured her, for here lies her cloak, all mangled and
bloodstained. Alas, that I came too late! Her love for me led Thisbe
to brave the perils of night and danger, and I was not here to protect
and save her. She dies a victim to her love, but she shall not perish
alone. One same night will see the end of both lovers. Come, ye lions,
and devour me too, 'tis my one prayer. Yet 'tis a coward's part to
pray for death when his own hands can give it."

With these words he drew Thisbe's cloak towards him, and covered it
with kisses. "My blood too shall stain you," he cried, and plunged his
sword with true aim in his breast. The blood spouted forth as from a
fountain and stained the white fruit of the mulberry overhead.

While Pyramus lay dying under the tree, Thisbe had recovered from her
fright, and now stole forth from her hiding-place, hoping that her
lover might be at