Beauty and the Beast (Disney song) author Jerry Griswold believes that the song's opening line "tale as old as time" alludes to the fact that Belle's story is an ancient, timeless one "deliberately situated within the context of other traditional tales;" hers is simply "the newest incarnation" of it. "The Translation of the Songs in Disney's "Beauty and the Beast": an example of Manipulation" author Lucía Loureiro Porto agrees that although the song "does not tell any story, it is made of phrases that imply that love is as old a feeling as mankind." According to Perry Seibert of AllMovie, "Beauty and the Beast" is "as
Beauty and the Beast going back to the castle. Beauty's heart is moved by her family's overprotection, and she reluctantly agrees to stay. Beauty begins to feel guilty about trying to break her promise to the Beast and uses the mirror to see him back at the castle. She is horrified to discover that the Beast is lying dead near the rose bushes from which her father plucked the rose, and she immediately steals the ring back from her father, and uses it to return to the Beast. Once she returns to the castle, Beauty's fears are confirmed that the Beast was found murdered