In Babylon there lived the most handsome pair of young lovers in the East. Pyramus loved Thisbe and she loved him, but although they were nextdoor neighbors they could never get together because both sets of parents opposed the courtship. In order to converse they had to whisper through a chink in the wall that separated them. Tired of this subterfuge, they agreed to meet one night outside the city to elope. Thisbe arrived at the meeting place under a mulberry tree and was frightened off by a lion with bloody jaws. The lion found her scarf and ripped it, staining the scarf with blood. When Pyramus came along he discovered the scarf and the lion's tracks and he assumed Thisbe had been killed. No longer wishing to live, he took his sword and plunged it into his body. The blood spurted upward and dyed the white mulberries red. Thisbe returned to find her lover at the point of death. She obtained his sword and committed suicide. The two of them were buried in a single urn. Since that time the mulberry tree has always put forth red berries.
