PYRAMUS AND THISBE  , the

hero and heroine of a Babylonian love-story told by Ovid (Metam. iv . 55-465) . Their parents refused to consent to their union, and the lovers used to converse through a chink in the wall separating their houses . At last they resolved to flee together, and agreed to meet under a mulberry tree near the tomb of Ninus . Thisbe was the first to arrive, but, terrified by the roar of a lion, took to flight . In her haste she dropped her veil, which the lion tore to pieces with jaws stained with the blood of an ox . Pyramus, believing that she had been devoured by the lion, stabbed himself . Thisbe returned to the rendezvous, and finding her lover mortally wounded, put an end to her own life . From that time the fruit of the mulberry, previously white, was always black . See G . Hart, Die Urspryng and Verbreitung der Pyramus- und-Thisbesage (1889-1892) .