THE MULBERRY 31 



berries ; but the story of Pyramus and Thisbe 

 told in Ovid's "Metamorphoses," and yet more 

 familiar to us from the burlesque of it in A 

 Midsummer Night's Dream,, has suggested to a 

 very high authority that there must have been 

 some knowledge of the White Mulberry as well 

 as of the Black in Ovid's time. The scene of the 

 tale is laid at Babylon: Thisbe flies from a lioness 

 whose mouth is bloody from the recent slaughter 

 of an ox: Pyramus, her lover, coming to the ren- 

 dezvous and finding her blood-stained garment, 

 thinks her dead, and kills himself at the foot of 

 a Mulberry-tree; and Thisbe, returning, does' th6 

 same. The poet then tells us that the fruit of the 

 tree till then was snow-white ; but when the lovers' 

 blood flowed over its roots and was absorbed 

 into the sap — 



" Dark in the rising tide the berries grew^ 

 And, white no longer, took a sable hue ; 

 But, brighter crimson, springing from the roojfc. 

 Shot through the black, and purpled o'er the fruit." 



Undoubtedly, though less suited for the pur- 

 pose, and now valued rather for its fruit, the Black 

 Mulberry was used as food for the silkworm in 

 Southern Europe before the more delicate Morus aWa* 

 Its hardier nature also led to its introduction into 

 Britain long before the attempt was made to grow 

 silk in this country. In Archbishop ^Ifric's tenth- 

 century vocabulary we have in the lisf of trees 

 " Morus, vet rubus, mor-beam '' ; but in the same list 

 appears " Flavi, vel mori, blaceberian" ; so that it 

 is at least possible that the drink known as morat. 



