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ECHO AND NARCISSUS
At times it pleased great Zeus to take upon himself some earthly form, and so descend from Olympus, and amuse himself amongthe mortals for a time. But Hera, his queen, was jealous of these pleasures, and whenever she learned that he had gone,she would follow him and search the whole world through until she found him. Then she would weary him with angry words and with reproaches till, for the sake of peace, he would return with her to his high palace on Olympus.
But once, when Hera followed him there, he hid himself in a deep wood and bade.the nymph Echo go to meet his queen and keep her for a while in talk until he could escape unseen back to Olympus.This Echo did. Of all the nymphs, she was the wittiest and the most cunning. She hastened forth, and meeting the goddess on her way began at once to pour into her ears some curious tale of something she had lately seen.
So strange was the tale that, though Hera was in haste, she stayed to listen. Then when the story had reached its end, she would have gone again upon her way, but now it was some even stranger tale Echo had to tell. So she kept Hera listening there till Zeus was safely back upon Olympus.
His queen found him there when she returned at last, wearied from her searching on the earth. He was enthroned again in hishigh hall in all his majesty and glory. But Hera guessed the trick that had been played upon her, and in wrath she cried, "Never again shall Echo's and piteous indeed was Echo's case, and the more piteous because she loved a youth namedNarcissus.
He was the fairest youth on all the earth; so beauteous, indeed, that many a nymph had pined for love of him, but Narcissusscorned them all and fled from their sighs and tender looks. Echo might, perhaps, in time have won his love by her wit, if she could have put it into words, but now she could not, and he fled from her as from the others. But one day she hid herself amongthe bushes in a wood where he often came, with the hope that, thinking himself alone, he might breathe out some tender word orsigh she could repeat to him.
It was not long before she saw him come. He was weary from the chase, and threw himself down beneath a tree to rest. "Heigho!"he sighed. "Heigho!" Echo repeated softly. "Who is there?" cried Narcissus, starting up. "Is there!" answered Echo. "Is it a friend?""A friend!" replied the nymph. "Then come to me." "Come to me," Echo cried joyously, and springing from the thicket where she had lain hidden, she ran to him with outstretched arms.
But Narcissus drew back from her with frowning brows. "I know thee now," he cried. "Thou art one of those who have followed me. I do not want thy love." "Want thy love," the nymph repeated piteously, holding out to him her arms. But Narcissus answered more sharply still, "Away and touch me not and never follow me again! " "Follow me again!" cried Echo. But already Narcissus was gone from her. He had fled away more swiftly than she could follow him, and from that day he hid from her so that she could not find him.
Then the poor nymph grieved bitterly. Day after day she spent in tears and sad complaints until at last her sorrow melted her flesh away; her bones became rocks, and at last nothing was left of her but a wandering voice that haunted caves and cliffs, answering back the calls and cries of others. But before she had vanished quite, the nymph breathed out a silent prayer to Aphrodite that some day Narcissus himself might feel a sorrow like to hers, might pine with love of one who neither could nor would return that love.
Her silent prayer was granted, and thus it came to pass that Narcissus entered once a lonely wood where he had never been before, and there came to a pool as still and bright as polished silver. Never deer or bird or any living thing had found that pool until Narcissus came. Thirsty after his wanderings he knelt to drink, and as he bent above the pool he saw himself reflected in the water, yet he did not know it was his own image that he saw. He thought it was some nymph or naiad who lived there in the pool&emdash;one lovelier far than any he had ever seen before. Filled with delight he gazed, then suddenly plunged his arms down in the pool and sought to seize the lovely thing, but at once the water broke into ripples and his reflection disappeared.
Narcissus drew back with beating heart, and breathlessly waited hoping it would again appear, yet fearing that he had frightened it away forever. Then, as the pool grew still, his image showed again there in the water. More gently now Narcissus moved, stooping down toward it, and always as he stooped near and nearer, so the image seemed to rise up toward him, until it was as though in a moment their lips would meet; but when he thought to kiss those lips, 'twas only the chill water that he touched. Again and still again he tried to grasp the image, but always at his touch it disappeared. And now the unhappy youth spent all his days there by the pool, filled with hopeless love of his own image.
He neither ate nor slept, but pined and pined with love, even as Echo had, until at last he pined his life away.Then from the fieldsand woods arose a sound of mourning. Voices cried, "Narcissus, the beautiful, is dead! is dead!" Youths and nymphs, dryads and fauns, lamented over him, while Echo repeated every sigh and sad complaint she heard. A funeral pyre was built on which they thought to lay the lovely form of dead Narcissus, but when they went to look for it, it had disappeared; instead they found only, in the spot where it had lain, a snow-white flower; It was a flower different from any they had ever seen before, and guessing that the gods had changed him into this form, They called it by his name, and ever since that flower has been known everywhere as the Narcissus&emdash;loveliest of blooms, even as of old that first Narcissus was the loveliest of youths.
THE END
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