In Golding's translation, fol. 43, back, thus:—
'Within the town (of whose huge walles so monstrous high and thicke,
The fame is giuen Semiramis for making them of bricke)
Dwelt hard together two young folke in houses ioynde so nere,
That under all one roofe well nie both twaine conuayed were.
The name of him was Pyramus, and Thisbe call'd was she;
So faire a man in all the East was none aliue as he.
Nor nere a woman, mayde, nor wife in beautie like to her.'
This at once explains the allusion to Semiramis, the celebrated but mythical queen who was said to have surrounded Babylon with walls of fabulous strength, having a deep ditch outside them. See Orosius, as translated by King Alfred, in Sweet's A.S. Reader, fourth ed. pp. 28, 29. Gower tells the same story, and likewise follows Ovid; C. A. i. 324.
[718]. Estward; evidently from Ovid's 'Oriens'; see above.