Pyramus and Thisbe

Pyramus and Thisbe, two young lovers, in an ancient Babylonian story recounted in the Metamorphoses of the Roman poet Ovid. Their parents occupied adjacent houses, and the young people fell in love, but their parents forbade them to marry. The lovers held whispered conversations through a crack in the wall between their houses. Finally, they decided to meet at the tomb of Ninus, under a white mulberry tree. Arriving first, Thisbe saw a lion with jaws bloody from a recent kill. Fleeing, the maiden dropped her veil, which the lion tore in its bloody mouth. When Pyramus came, he saw the bloody veil and, believing Thisbe dead, plunged his sword in his side. His blood spurted upward, staining the white mulberries. Thisbe found him dying and stabbed herself. Ever since, the mulberry has been purple. Shakespeare included a travesty of the story in A Midsummer Night's Dream.