Pyramus and Thisbe had never met. But Cupid had other plans. The flippant god of desire only had to look at the couple a single time to know they were the perfect match for each other. The childlike god had the two Babylonian children in his sights, and Cupid took his bow and an arrow with a sharp golden point, and he drew the bowstring back and aimed an arrow at Thisbe.
Venus appeared before Cupid, and the boy panicked at the sight of his mother. Cupid distractedly let an arrow fly toward the goddess of love, but Venus caught the arrow by its shaft inches before it struck her face. The goddess clenched her fist over the arrow so tightly that the arrow split into two pieces and fell upon the ground. She stood over Cupid, scowling with motherly disappointment.
"Boy, what are you doing in Babylon?" Venus said.
"Nothing, mother," Cupid said.
Venus knew her son was lying. The goddess grabbed Cupid by his wings and lifted him up, then she struck his buttocks, and Cupid let out a yelp of pain.
"You cannot deceive me, boy. I know that you have flown away from home to fire arrows at the people of Babylon according to your blind impulses. Unmannerly child, your wings should be clipped for your insolence! Oh, if Ishtar found you, she would cut off your wings herself for interfering with her domain in her own city. You should consider yourself fortunate that I found you before she did," Venus said.
Venus left Babylon, carrying Cupid with her to Rome. While struggling to break free from his mother's grip, some of Cupid's dull lead arrows fell on the ground.
An hour later, an intrigued young Pyramus found Cupid's arrows, and recognizing that the arrows were not made by mortal hands, he took the arrows home for good fortune. Little did he know that Cupid's arrows would one day save his life.
Yet even without Cupid's involvement, Thisbe was the loveliest girl in all of towering Babylon, and Pyramus was the most handsome boy in the city, and it was inevitable for the couple to fall in love. Though Cupid had failed to shoot his golden arrows at the couple, Pyramus and Thisbe grew close to each other without the god of desire's assistance. Pyramus and Thisbe were neighbours who first met each other as youths, and though their feuding families tried to keep the two apart, their parents could not stop the love blossoming in their hearts.
Pyramus and Thisbe spoke to each other through a secret crack in the shared wall that separated their two homes. It was merely a small fissure that had gone undetected when their houses were first built. Through this crack, the two shared their love for one another, and they touched the wall with kisses that could not reach the other side as they bid each other farewell each night.
One morning, when the dawn goddess Aya had doused the fires of night, Pyramus and Thisbe spoke to each other through the cracked wall and came up with a scheme to escape the city.
"If only our families were not enemies. Then we could agree to swear the marriage oath with each other. All I see before me are walls made to separate us. Like this wall that separates us right now, and the walls our fathers have in their hearts," Thisbe said.
"Let us meet at the tall white mulberry tree by the grave of Ninus, where we can reunite before escaping into the open country. We shall go somewhere where there will be no walls to hinder our love," Pyramus said.
"We will do it at night, when our parents are asleep, and we will trick the guards so that we can escape our homes in secret. The two of us will flee Babylon together," Thisbe said.
The two lovers parted ways by planting a kiss to the crack of the wall that divided them.
Night fell upon Babylon as the sun god Shamash dove under the horizon. Thisbe made her way to the tomb of Ninus before Pyramus, veiling her face to conceal her identity, and she sat underneath the mulberry tree they had agreed upon as a meeting spot. But there was a lioness approaching Thisbe, mouth dripping with blood from hunting cattle, and Thisbe ran away into a dark cave to hide from the predator, accidentally leaving behind her veil. The curious lioness later found the fallen veil on the ground, and seized the veil with her bloodstained jaws.
