Narcissus

Adapted from Mythology, by Edith Hamilton

There was once a beautiful lad whose name was Narcissus. His beauty was so great, all the girls who saw him longed to be his, but he would have none of them, for his only love was for himself. He would pass the loveliest carelessly by, no matter how much she tried to make him look at her. Heartbroken maidens were nothing to him.

Even the sad case of the fairest of the nymphs, Echo, did not move him. She was a favorite of Artemis, the goddess of woods and wild creatures, but she came under the displeasure of a still mightier goddess, Hera herself, who was at her usual occupation of trying to discover what Zeus was about. She suspected that he was in love with one of the nymphs and she went to look them over to try to discover which. However, she was immediately diverted from her investigation by Echo's gay chatter. As she listened amused, the others silently stole away and Hera could come to no conclusion as to where Zeus's wandering fancy had alighted.

With her usual injustice she turned against Echo. That nymph became another unhappy girl whom Hera punished. The goddess condemned her never to use her tongue again except to repeat what was said to her. "You will always have the last word," Hera said, "but no power to speak first."

This was very hard, but hardest of all when Echo, too, with all the other lovelorn maidens, loved Narcissus. She could follow him, but she could not speak to him. How then could she make a youth who never looked at a girl pay attention to her? Still she followed him in silent adoration.

As Narcissus bent over a clear pool for a drink and saw his own reflection, on that moment he fell in love with it. "Now I know," he cried, "what others have suffered from me, for I burn with love for my own self—and yet how can I reach that loveliness I see mirrored in the water? But I cannot leave it. Only death can set me free."

Echo knelt beside him at the water's edge. "Can set me free," she repeated.

Narcissus did not look up, but continued to gaze into the water. For many days he stayed at that pond, staring at his own image. He grew thin and weak from pining, as Echo did alongside him. One, day, he murmured "I love you," to his reflection.

"I love you," Echo said. "I love you." Then Narcissus did look up, and saw reflected in her eyes his own image, and saw reflected in her beauty his own loveliness.

"Who are you, who finally has brought me beauty that I can reach, that I can touch, that I can love?" He asked.

But Echo could say no more than "I can love."

"As can I," Narcissus told her, and took her in his arms.