History/Herstory: A classic story and a bloody fruit

Eversince I stepped into my twenties, I developed this crazy fascination for history. Alas! This love for history came 6 years too late. I mean, where was it when I was just trying to mug up the conquest of the Mughals and invasion of the British to no avail? Life is funny I tell you. So, getting back to my history fanaticism. Often, I would be reading or watching or maybe even using something and it would strike me- 'I wonder when people started using it?' or 'Would'nt it be fun to see what medieval people used to think about this?'

Like, the other day I was watching Romeo and Juliet, and later started searching about other famous love stories in history and, of course, came across several. One of them was a mythological tale of starcrossed lovers that actually inspired the ever famous Shakespeare's tale of Romeo and Juliet.

This roman mythological story also explains how, presumably, mulberry got its dark bloody color.
Mulberry, which I thought was foreign to India, is in fact the very fruit  I used to pick from the trees of my neighbour's backyard as a child.
We Indians call it 'Shatoot'. If you have eaten this fruit, you would know how it is the one of the sweetest and most delicious fruits ever.

So here it is...read on..

Pyramus and Thisbe

Once upon a time, when the fruit of mulberry used to be white, there lived Pyramus and Thisbe in the city of Babylon, in the houses that shared a wall. As children, they used to play endlessly with each other. And when they grew older their childhood companionship changed to all consuming love for each other. But unlike the two lovers, whose love grew each day, the unpleasantness between their parents grew to such bitter animosity that the two young hearts so attached to one another, were forbidden to see each other.

Defying the wishes of their parents, they continued to meet each other in secrecy. But then, days would go when Pyramus couldn’t behold the beautiful face of Thisbe, and days would go by without Thisbe hearing Pyramus promise his love to her. Soon they found the common wall to their adjacent houses. It had a crack in it, which allowed the two lovers to exchange words through the wall.

Thisbe by John William Waterhouse

On one of the glorious days of gods, while Pyramus and Thisbe sat against their respective side of the wall, a pair of ruddy birds flew together overhead against the bright blue sky. The birds kept on flying and together they disappeared into the horizon. Looking at the birds, Pyramus and Thisbe couldn’t help but ponder at their plight. A long while they sat there by the wall, where the gloom of each soul seeped through the crack in the wall and into the soul of another. Fed up of their misery they decided to flee together. On that night they decided to meet by a mulberry tree at Ninus’ tomb. Once her family was asleep, Thisbe sneaked out wearing a veil. She reached first at the tomb and sat by the mulberry tree where she was to meet Pyramus. Suddenly, she heard rustling in a bush nearby and saw a lioness, with jaw bloody from a recent kill, emerge out of it. Thisbe ran and hid herself in a cave she saw some distance afar. While fleeing, Thisbe dropped her veil which the lioness shredded with her bloody teeth before wandering away from the tree. As Pyramus arrived at the tomb, he became increasingly distraught  Thisbe anywhere and found his very suspicions delivered when he saw the torn, blood stained veil. Thinking that his beloved was killed by a beast, in his grief stricken state, he took his own life in a true roman fashion, by falling on his sword. He fell at the foot of the mulberry tree and his blood was spattered on the white fruits of mulberry.

When Thisbe thought it was safe, she came out of the cave and walked back to the mulberry tree, eager to meet Pyramus, and tell him what had happened with her. But what greeted her was the mangled body of her lover, under the shade of the mulberry tree, where she was suppose to meet him. Thisbe held the lifeless body and cried to the gods of her loss. She prayed that the fruits which were stained with her darling’s blood be turned red in the honour of their ill fated love. She mourned for hours, and so overwhelmed was she with her loss that she plunged the same sword through her heart which stilled the heart she loved dearly, leaving the tomb filled with the echo of her sorrow.

Pyramus and Thisbe at the mulberry tree by Jacopo Vignali 

The death of the lovers and Thisbe’s laments evoked the gods and the fruit of the mulberry was turned red in the honour of the two lovers, who were united only in their death.


Sob, sob. That kids was tonight's story. Now, good night and sweet dreams.