Based on what the girl is reading, the episode clearly implies that its plot is loosely inspired by the doomed romance of Pyramus and Thisbe, whose tragic story forms part of Metamorphoses, a classic Latin narrative poem by the Roman poet Ovid. The same poem was probably also the basis for Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. In Ovid's poem, Pyramus and Thisbe are two forcibly separated neighbors and lovers in the city of Babylon, who occupy connected houses and communicate only in secret through a hole in their joint wall. Their families are feuding, so Pyramus and Thisbe are forbidden to ever meet or marry. The two go against their families' wishes anyway and arrange to meet and declare their love for each other in person. Thisbe arrives first, but the sight of a lioness with a mouth bloody from a recent kill terrifies her and she flees, leaving behind her veil. When Pyramus arrives he sees the veil and the lion's bloody mouth and mistakenly concludes that Thisbe's has been eaten, so he kills himself by falling on his sword in proper Babylonian fashion. Pyramus' blood stains the white mulberry fruits, turning them dark. Thisbe returns only to find Pyramus' dead body, so she kills herself as well with his sword. The gods change the color of the mulberry fruits to dark to honor their tragic love forever.