Echo

Echo was a mountain nymph in Greek mythology who could only repeat the last words spoken to her. In Ovid’s account Hera took away her ordinary speech as a punishment, and she later fell in love with Narcissus, was rejected, and wasted away until only her voice remained. The Greek word echo means sound.

The curse of Hera

Ovid tells us that Echo was a talkative nymph who could neither stay silent when spoken to nor speak first. At that time Echo still had a body and was not yet only a voice, but she already had the same use of speech as now: out of many words she could give back only the last. Juno often tried to catch Jupiter with the nymphs as they lay together on the mountain, and Echo kept the goddess occupied with long talk until the nymphs had fled. When Juno realized this, she said: “I will take away a little of the power of that tongue which deceived me, and you shall have only the briefest use of your voice.” Juno carried out her threat, and Echo could only repeat the last words of what she heard (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.356–369).

Narcissus rejects Echo

Narcissus was the son of the nymph Liriope and the river Cephisus; the seer Tiresias had said that he would live a long life “if he does not come to know himself”. At sixteen he was desired by many young men and women, but he was too proud to be touched by any of them (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.339–355). Echo saw him driving deer into his nets and fell in love. She followed him secretly, burning more the closer she came, but she could not speak to him first. When Narcissus, separated from his companions, called out “Is anyone here?”, Echo answered “Here!”. He called “Come!” and she called back “Come!”. He asked why she fled, and she repeated his words. When he said “Let us meet here” she gladly answered, came out of the wood and tried to throw her arms around his neck. He ran away, crying that he would die before she should have power over him. Echo could only answer with his last words: “I shall have power over you” (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.370–392).

The end of Echo

Rejected, Echo hid in the woods, covering her face with leaves, and lived in lonely caves. Her love grew with her grief; sleeplessness wasted her body until only voice and bones were left. The voice remained, and the bones, so they say, turned to stone. Since then she is seen on no mountain but is heard by everyone, since sound is all that lives in her (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.393–401).

Narcissus had treated others in the same way, and one rejected lover prayed that he too might love and not possess what he loved. Nemesis (Rhamnusia) granted the prayer. Narcissus bent over a clear spring, fell in love with his own reflection and could not leave it. Echo, though still angry, pitied him. When he cried “Alas” she repeated it, and when he said his last words to his reflection, “Farewell, boy beloved in vain”, the place gave back the same words, and Echo answered “Farewell!”. After his death the Naiads and the Dryads mourned, and Echo echoed their lament. When they prepared his funeral pyre they found no body, only a yellow flower with white petals around its centre (Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.402–510).

Echo in Other Sources

Ovid is the main source for Echo and Narcissus. A mountain Echo who answers a lament is also a poetic image in Sophocles, where the chorus describes the “mountain-haunting, babbling Echo” that carries the cries of the suffering Philoctetes from afar (Sophocles, Philoctetes 187–190). In the Greek city of Thespiae, Pausanias says, there was a spring called Narcissus’s at a place named Donacon, where Narcissus was said to have looked into the water, not understanding that it was his own reflection; Pausanias thinks this story foolish and mentions no Echo (Pausanias 9.31.7).

Echo Sources

Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.339–510; Sophocles, Philoctetes 187–190; Pausanias 9.31.7.

See Also: Zeus, Hera, Narcissus, Nemesis, Tiresias, Cephisus, Liriope