Bowl with Pyramus and Thisbe,

12th century

This is a bowl from a series of bronze vessels with engraved narrative scenes from classical mythology or the Bible. There are at least nine examples showing the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, making it the most popular subject. Various uses have been proposed for these bowls, ranging from penitential hand-washing in convents to pedagogical use in the schoolroom. In support of the second theory, it has been shown the tale of Pyramus and Thisbe was a common classroom subject for rhetorical exercises.
As related in Ovid's Metamorphoses, Pyramus and Thisbe were star-crossed lovers whose parents refused to allow them to marry. Their families lived in connecting houses and the lovers whispered to each other through a crack in one of the walls. They arranged to meet under a mulberry tree near a tomb. Thisbe arrived first and found an angry lioness; she departed, leaving her veil behind. The lioness mutilated the veil, which Pyramus later found. Believing Thisbe dead, he stabbed himself beneath the tree. Overcome by her grief, Thisbe committed suicide. Answering Thisbe's lamentations, the gods changed the color of the mulberry fruits to the color of Pyramus's blood.
On this bowl, several scenes from the story are illustrated, and accompanied by inscriptions that seem to come from medieval paraphrases of Ovid. In the central medallion, Pyramus and Thisbe converse on either side of a wall separating two rooms, is inscribed INVIDE.CVR.PARIES.IUVENES.DISIUNGIS.AMANTES. Around the sides are four scenes. Thisbe leaves the palace, has an inscription that has been corrected to read TISBES.MAIOREM. VIGILAN[TES]; Thisbe leaves Babylon is inscribed FALLENS.CUVSTODES.URBIS.MAGNE. VIGILAN[TES]; Thisbe at the spring where she is to meet Pyramus, has the inscription EXPECTAT.PIRAMU.RESIDENDO.SUB.AR[BORE.TARD. Finally, Thisbe hides is inscribed ET.MORITURA.CITO.MORTEM.DEVITAT.IN.[ANTRO].