Once upon a time the deep red berries of mulberry trees were white as snow. The change in color came about strangely and sadly. The death of two young lovers was the cause.

In the wall both houses shared there was a little chink. No one before had noticed it, but there is nothing a lover does not notice. Our two young people discovered sweetly back and forth. Thisbe on one side, Pyramus on the other. The hateful wall that separated them had become their means of reaching each other. "But for you we could touch, kiss", they would say. "But at least you let us speak together. You give a passage for loving words to reach loving ears. We are not ungrateful." So they would talk, and as night came on and they must part, each would press on the wall kisses that could not go through to the lips on the other side. Every morning when the dawn had put out the stars, the sun's rays had dried the hoarfrost on the grass, they would steal to the crack and, standing there, now utter words of burning love and lament their hard fate, but always in softest whispers. Finally, a day came when they could endure no longer. They decided that very night they would try to slip away and steal out through the city in to open country where at last they could be together in freedom. They agreed to meet at a well-known place, the Tomb of Ninus, under a tree there, a tall mulberry full of snow-white berries, near which is a cool spring bubbles up. The plan pleased them and it seemed to them the day would never end.