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Echo, having often amused Juno with her stories, to give time to |
Jupiter’s mistresses to make their escape, the Goddess, at last, |
punishes her for the deception. She is slighted and despised by |
Narcissus, with whom she falls in love. |
He, much celebrated by fame throughout the cities of Aonia, 67 gave |
unerring answers to the people consulting him. The azure Liriope 68 was |
the first to make essay and experiment of his infallible voice; whom |
once Cephisus encircled in his winding stream, and offered violence to, |
when enclosed by his waters. The most beauteous Nymph produced an |
infant from her teeming womb, which even then might have been beloved, |
and she called him Narcissus. Being consulted concerning him, whether he |
was destined to see the distant season of mature old age; the prophet, |
expounding destiny, said, "If he never recognizes himself. " Long did the |
words of the soothsayer appear frivolous; but the event, the thing |
itself , the manner of his death, and the novel nature of his frenzy, |
confirmed it. |
And now the son of Cephisus had added one to three times five years, and |
he might seem to be a boy and a young man as well. Many a youth, 69 and |
many a damsel, courted him; but there was so stubborn a pride in his |
youthful beauty, that no youths, no damsels made any impression on |
him. The noisy Nymph, who has neither learned to hold her tongue after |
another speaking, nor to speak first herself, resounding Echo, espied |
him, as he was driving the timid stags into his nets. Echo was then a |
body, not a voice; and yet the babbler had no other use of her speech |
than she now has, to be able to repeat the last words out of many. Juno |
had done this; because when often she might have been able to detect the |
Nymphs in the mountains in the embrace of her husband , Jupiter, she |
purposely used to detain 70 the Goddess with a long story, until the |
Nymphs had escaped. After the daughter of Saturn perceived this , she |
said, "But small exercise of this tongue, with which I have been |
deluded, shall be allowed thee, and a very short use of thy voice. " And |
she confirmed her threats by the event. Still, in the end of one’s |
speaking she redoubles the voice, and returns the words she hears. When, |
therefore, she beheld Narcissus 71 wandering through the pathless |
forests, and fell in love with him, she stealthily followed his steps; |
and the more she followed him, with the nearer flame did she burn. In no |
other manner than as when the native sulphur, spread around 72 the tops |
of torches, catches the flame applied to it . Ah! how often did she |
desire to accost him in soft accents, and to employ soft entreaties! |
Nature resists, and suffers her not to begin; but what Nature does |
permit, that she is ready for; to await his voice, to which to return |
her own words. |
By chance, the youth, being separated from the trusty company of his |
attendants, cries out, "Is there any one here? " and Echo answers "Here!" |
He is amazed; and when he has cast his eyes on every side, he cries out |
with a loud voice, "Come!" Whereon she calls the youth who calls. He |
looks back; and again, as no one comes, he says, "Why dost thou avoid |
me? " and just as many words as he spoke, he receives. He persists; and |
being deceived by the imitation of an alternate voice, he says, "Let us |
come together here; " and Echo, that could never more willingly answer |
any sound whatever, replies, "Let us come together here!" and she |
follows up her own words, and rushing from the woods, 73 is going to |
throw her arms around the neck she has so longed for. He flies; and as |
he flies, he exclaims, "Remove thy hands from thus embracing me; I will |
die first, before thou shalt have the enjoyment of me. " She answers |
nothing but "Have the enjoyment of me. " Thus rejected, she lies hid in |
the woods, and hides her blushing face with green leaves, and from that |
time lives in lonely caves; but yet her love remains, and increases from |
the mortification of her refusal. Watchful cares waste away her |
miserable body; leanness shrivels her skin, and all the juices of her |
body fly off in air. Her voice and her bones alone are left. |
Her voice still continues, but they say that her bones received the |
form of stones. Since then, she lies concealed in the woods, and is |
never seen on the mountains: but is heard in all of them . It is her |
voice alone which remains alive in her. |
EXPLANATION. |
It appears much more reasonable to attempt the explanation of this |
story on the grounds of natural philosophy than of history. The poets, |
in their fondness for basing every subject upon fiction, probably |
invented the fable, to explain what to them appeared an extraordinary |
phenomenon. By way of embellishing their story, they tell us that Echo |
was the daughter of the Air and the Tongue, and that the God Pan fell |
in love with her; by which, probably, the simple fact is meant, that |
some person, represented under the name of that god, endeavored to |
trace the cause of this phenomenon. |
If, however, we should endeavor to base the story upon purely |
historical grounds, we may suppose that it took its rise from some |
Nymph, who wandered so far into the woods as to be unable to find her |
way out again; and from the fact that those who went to seek her, |
hearing nothing but the echo of their own voices, brought back the |
strange but unsatisfactory intelligence that the Nymph had been |
changed into a voice. |
Narcissus falls in love with his own shadow, which he sees in a |
fountain; and, pining to death, the Gods change him into a flower, |
which still bears his name. |
Thus had he deceived her, thus, too, other Nymphs that sprung from the |
water or the mountains, thus the throng of youths before them . |
Some one, therefore, who had been despised by him , lifting up his |
hands towards heaven, said, "Thus, though he should love, let him not |
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