Long ago, a handsome young man named Pyramus and Thisbe, the fairest maiden in Babylonia, lived in neighbouring homes. They were close friends, loved each other and grew up together. However, probably due to family feuds or any other reason best known to them, their parents were totally against their union and were absolutely hostile about their marriage. As the parents strictly instructed them not to see each other, the star-crossed lovers had no option but to burn the light of love brightly in their hearts and meet secretively, as and when they can. On one of those rare occasions, as they arrived at their usual meeting place, the serene beauty of the day made them lament, while they kiss and wept as they watched two hummingbirds fly over a tree together.

But those short meetings were not enough for the lovelorn young pairs, as they wanted to be together all the time and talk and hear their honeyed words for hours together endlessly. Eventually, they resorted to a strange way to whisper sweet nothings through a crack in the wall between their houses, resulting from anearthquake long ago.

However, as the days crawled on, the young lovers became impatient, as they were missing each other badly and also got fed up with the restrictions imposed bytheir parents. Finally, one day while whispering through the crack in the wall, they decided not to stay detached from each other anymore and resolved to flee together to an unknown destination, with the dream to live happily in togetherness forever. They also decided to meet the next night outside the city gates under a mulberry tree filled with white fruits near the tomb of Ninus, the King of Assyria.

The next day, as decided earlier, both of them slipped out from their respective homes, long before the crack of the day, when the world was asleep. Using her cape as a veil to hide her identity, Thisbe arrived at the appointed spot first and waited patiently for Pyramus to come. However, as she waited under the tree, she suddenly saw to her extreme horror an approaching lioness, fresh from a kill, with her jaws covered in blood from her previous kill. Frightened by the hideous sight, she panicked and ran for her life to hide in a hollow cave, losing her cape while running. Following her shriek, as the lioness came near the tree and found the cloak, the animal picked it up, tore it to pieces with its blood stained jaws and left it on the ground before leaving the place.

After a while, when Pyramus arrived near the mulberry tree filled with white fruits, he immediately spotted the footprints of the lioness and was stunned to find the tattered and blood stained cloak of Thisbe, which he gifted her. As he could not find her ladylove anywhere on the scene, he became completely devastated to conclude that she was killed by the animal. He blamed himself for her death, as he thought that probably he could save her had he not been late and decided to commit suicide, as he thought that life without Thisbe would be unbearable and meaningless for him. Without any hesitation, he unsheathed his sword to pierce his chest and blood from his wound sprayed on the white mulberry fruits, turning them into dark purple.

By that time, recovered from her fright, Thisbe came out from her hiding, after making herself sure that the lioness had left. But when she found from a distance the body of a man lying in a crumpled heap on the ground, her heart stopped for a moment or two in apprehension. She ran towards the man with a trembling heart and was shocked to find the love of her life lying and gasping on the ground next to the mulberry fruits, stained red with the blood of her lover and his own sword impaling his chest.While she took his head on her lap, the fatally wounded man, struggling hard for his breath, briefed her about the incident. He died soon, leaving Thisbe totally shattered. All the colours of the world were washed out from her eyes with the unfortunate and untimely end of her lover. She lost her interest in life, brought out the bloodstained sword from Pyramus' chest to bring the blade into her own soft flesh, with the hope of meeting him in the life hereafter.

It is said that since then, the fruits of the mulberry bush turn into purple when they mature, in commemoration of those two young lovers.

It is considered by many that the tragic tale of Pyramus and Thisbe has its origins in the Roman Mythology, although the story is immortalised in the mosaic displays of Paphos, a city on the southwest coast of the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, officially called the Republic of Cyprus. The tale was best recounted by the Roman poet Ovid in his Metamorphoses, Book IV and also in William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (Act V, sc 1). The plot elements were also used by Shakespeare in his Romeo and Juliet.