Story
The story is told in Book III of the Metamorphoses, and tells the story of a "talkative nymph" who "yet a chatterbox, had no other use of speech than she has now, that she could repeat only the last words out of many." She falls in love with Narcissus, whom she catches sight of when he is "chasing frightened deer into his nets." Eventually, after "burning with a closer flame," Echo's presence is revealed to Narcissus, who, after a comic, yet tragic scene, rejects her love. Echo wastes away, until she "remains a voice" and "is heard by all." This is the explanation of the aural effect which was named after her.
Then, Narcissus "tired from both his enthusiasm for hunting and from the heat" rests by a spring, and whilst drinking, "a new thirst grows inside him" and he is "captivated by the image of the beauty he has seen" and falls deeply in love with "all the things for which he himself is admired." He then wastes away with love for himself, echoing the manner in which Echo did earlier on. A while later his body is gone, and in its place is a narcissus flower. The pale flower is still found near river banks so that it can be reflected on the water.
Read more about this topic: Echo And Narcissus
Famous quotes containing the word story:
“One story recounts that a Tennessean, after a single day in the then almost impenetrable tangle of cypress, briars, and canebreaks, pestered by myriads of mosquitoes, and bogged in the heavy gumbo mud, declared: “Arkansas is not part of the world for which Jesus Christ died—I want none of it.””
—Administration in the State of Arka, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Even such is Time, which takes in trust
Our youth, our joys, and all we have,
And pays us but with age and dust,
Who in the dark and silent grave
When we have wandered all our ways
Shuts up the story of our days.
And from which earth, and grave, and dust,
The Lord shall raise me up I trust.”
—Sir Walter Raleigh (1552–1618)
“All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.”
—Isak Dinesen (1885–1962)