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There were not wanting, however, a certain number of human forms to enliven the scene; and among these were two a man thrusting his spear through a lion, and a woman on horseback aiming at a leopard with her javelin which the later Greeks believed to represent the mythic Ninus and Semiramis.
At the appointed time, Thisbe, heavily veiled, managed to escape from home unnoticed, and after a stealthy journey through the streets of Babylon, she came to the grove of mulberries near the tomb of Ninus. The place was deserted, and once there she put off the veil from her face to see if Pyramus waited anywhere among the shadows.
Stueck, where the critic compares the ghost of Ninus in Voltaire's Semiramis with the ghost in Hamlet. He condemns the former because it is nothing more than a poetical machine, while Shakespeare's is one of the persons of the drama. The loose construction of the Italian opera has at least one advantage; it can be trimmed to suit the local exigencies of performance.
All that we may surely gather from the passage in question is that, at the time of Ctesias, and perhaps a little later, the remains of a great staged-tower were to be seen among the ruins of Nineveh. The popular imagination had dubbed this the tomb of Ninus, just as one of the great heaps of debris that now mark the site is called the tomb of Jonah.
"Oh, I promise you, Sniggius hath a device for disguising all that could give offence. The Queen will become Semiramis or Zenobia, I know not which, and my Lord of Leicester, Master Hatton, and the others, will be called Ninus or Longinus, or some such heathenish long-tailed terms, and speak speeches of mighty length. Are they to be in Latin, Humfrey?" "Oh no, sir," said Humfrey, with a shudder.
She was a beautiful girl, brought up by Simmas, a shepherd, from whom her name is derived. One of the king's generals fell in love with her and married her. Then he himself was smitten by her beauty, and wanted her himself; the husband was good-natured enough to commit suicide, and she became queen. Ninus soon died in a very accommodating manner, and Semiramis reigned alone for over forty years.
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.
The scene in the first act where the specter of her murdered consort appears she made so thrilling and impressive that some of the older opera-goers compared it to the wonderful acting of Garrick in the "ghost-scene" of "Hamlet"; and those when she learns that Arsace is her son, and when she falls by his hand before the tomb of Ninus, were recounted in after-years as among the most startling memories of a lifetime.
In Asia is founde Ninus, Cirus, Artasercses, Mithridates: and verie fewe other, that to these maie be compared. There rose therfore in Asia, fewe excellente menne: bicause thesame Province, was all under one kyngdome, in the whiche for the greatnesse thereof, thesame standing for the moste parte of tyme idell, there could not growe men in doynges excellent.
It was called Historiae Philippicae, and was apparently arranged according to nations; it began with Ninus, the Nimrod of classical legend, and was brought down to about 9 A.D. We know the work from the epitomes of the books and from Justin's abridgment, which is similar to that of Florus on Livy. Who Justin was, and where he lived, are not clearly ascertained.
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