I've been reading Ovid's Metamorphoses recently. I had started it at the end of May, but I got busy because of an online class I was taking, so I just re-started it last week.
At the beginning of Book IV is the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, which I had some familiarity with because we talked about it in my Shakespeare class. I've forgotten the specific connection, but it's somehow involved with A Midsummer Night's Dream. Also, it's what Shakespeare stole part of the plot of Romeo and Juliet from. (After learning about everything that Shakespeare stole, I'm sort of surprised that he's hailed as a paragon instead of denounced as a plagiarist.)
The rest of this contains spoilers, both for Pyramus and Thisbe and the folk song "Barbara Allen."
Because of parental disapproval, Pyramus and Thisbe decide to sneak out and meet in the woods. While Thisbe is waiting, a lion surprises her, and as Thisbe runs away, she drops her cloak. The lion chews up her cloak, and, since it's just eaten a lamb, it leaves blood on the cloak. Pyramus shows up to see the bloody cloak and the lion's footprints and presumes Thisbe dead, so, in his overwhelming grief, he stabs himself. Then Thisbe re-appears and - noticing that Pyramus is dead - stabs herself.
This all happens beneath a tree. As Thisbe says, "And you, O tree whose branches weave their shadows / Dark over the pitiful body of one lover / Shall soon bear shade for two." After Thisbe's death, the narrator explains that "the ripe fruit of the tree turned deep rose colour."
Which has a similarity with "Barbara Allen." Because of its nature as a folk song, there are many different versions, but the one I'm most familiar with is the demo that Simon & Garfunkel did (titled "Barbriallen"), which was released as a bonus track on Sounds of Silence. (Roger McGuinn also includes it in his Folk Den.) William is dying because he slighted Barbara when he was drinking at the tavern. He has his servant call her to him, but she seems indifferent about his death, remarking merely, "Young man, I think you're dyin'." At his funeral procession, she feels bad about this (presumably) and then also dies.
They buried sweet Willy in the old church yard
And Barbara in the new one
From Willy's grave there grew a rose
From Barbara's a green briar
They grew and they grew on the old church wallThe interlinking of the rosebush and the briar is what I'm calling attention to because it's the same sort of thing that happens in Ovid's account of Pyramus and Thisbe. After Pyramus and Thisbe's deaths under the tree, the fruit changes color, and after William and Barbara's burials, the plants that grow from their graves intertwine. In both cases, plants acknowledge the love that each couple had for each other.
And could not grow no higher
And there they tied in a true love's knot
The rosebush and the briar
