Greek mythology · 3 chapters

Echo and Narcissus

She can only repeat. He can only see himself. Their stories are the same tragedy.

Echo is a nymph cursed by Hera, because Echo had distracted Hera with chatter while Zeus escaped detection, to only be able to repeat the last words spoken to her, never to speak first. She falls in love with the beautiful youth Narcissus and follows him through the woods, able only to echo his words back. He rejects her contemptuously. She wastes away until only her voice remains. Narcissus, as punishment for his cruelty, is made to fall in love with his own reflection in a pool. He cannot leave it, cannot touch the image he loves, and slowly wastes away in longing, dying by the water, transformed into the narcissus flower. Both stories are parables of reflection: of words that cannot originate, of love that cannot reach.