Echo's Curse

Echo was a mountain nymph who loved to talk. Hera discovered that Echo had been distracting her with endless conversation while Zeus snuck away to visit other women. As punishment, Hera cursed Echo so that she could never speak first and could only repeat the last words spoken to her. The most talkative nymph in the world was reduced to a living echo.

The Most Beautiful Boy

Narcissus was the son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope. He was so extraordinarily beautiful that everyone who saw him fell in love with him, men and women alike. But Narcissus was cold and proud and rejected every admirer with cruel indifference. The prophet Tiresias, when asked whether Narcissus would live a long life, gave a cryptic answer: only if he never knows himself.

The Rejection

Echo saw Narcissus hunting in the forest and fell desperately in love with him. She followed him through the trees, unable to speak first, waiting for him to say something she could repeat. When Narcissus called out 'Is anyone here?' Echo answered 'Here! Here!' She emerged from the trees and tried to embrace him. Narcissus pushed her away in disgust. Echo was shattered. She retreated to the mountains and caves, refusing to eat, wasting away from grief until nothing was left of her but her voice, still repeating the last words of others among the rocks.

The Reflection

Nemesis, goddess of divine retribution, heard the prayers of all those Narcissus had rejected and decided to punish him. She led him to a clear, still pool of water. When Narcissus leaned down to drink, he saw his own reflection and fell instantly in love with it. He could not look away. He reached for the beautiful face in the water, but every time he touched the surface, it shattered. He lay beside the pool, staring at his own image, unable to eat or sleep, wasting away just as Echo had. He died there, and where his body had lain, a flower grew with white petals and a golden centre. It was called the narcissus.

Legacy

The myth gave us the word narcissism, now a clinical psychological term describing pathological self-absorption. Sigmund Freud used the myth extensively in his theories of ego development. The story works on multiple levels: it is about the cruelty of unrequited love, the destructive nature of vanity, and the tragedy of never truly connecting with another person. Echo and Narcissus are mirror images of each other. She can only reflect others. He can only see himself. Neither can truly reach the person they love.

Classical Sources

Cross-referenced with multiple classical sources for accuracy.

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How Ovid joined two separate stories

Echo and Narcissus are paired so often that it is easy to forget the pairing seems to be Ovid's own work. In the third book of his Metamorphoses he joined a nymph who could only repeat words with a youth who could only love his own reflection, and made them mirror images of each other. No earlier surviving source puts them together, and both had separate traditions of their own.

Ovid's version has small touches that are easy to miss. Narcissus is sixteen. His mother Liriope asks Tiresias about Narcissus in what Ovid presents as the seer's first prophecy, and its strange fulfilment is what makes Tiresias famous. The dialogue between the pair works as wordplay in Latin. Narcissus calls out "Is anyone here?" and Echo answers "Here!" He says "Let us come together" ("huc coeamus"), and she answers with the same words, gladly turning them into an invitation. He cries that he would rather die than give himself to her, and she can only repeat the end of it: "give myself to you". Later, wasting away by the pool, he says goodbye to his reflection and Echo gives the goodbye back. In Ovid, the avenging goddess who answers the prayer of a rejected admirer is Rhamnusia, a cult title of Nemesis taken from her sanctuary at Rhamnous in Attica. After death, Narcissus keeps gazing at himself in the waters of the Styx.

Other versions of Narcissus

Conon's Boeotian version. The mythographer Conon, a contemporary of Ovid whose summaries survive through the Byzantine scholar Photius, places Narcissus at Thespiae in Boeotia. There, a young man named Ameinias loves him and is rejected. Narcissus sends him a sword, and Ameinias kills himself with it at Narcissus' door, calling on Eros to avenge him. Narcissus then falls in love with his own reflection and kills himself. In this version the Thespians honoured Eros all the more afterwards. The tale is harsher, with no nymph and no flower softening the ending.

Pausanias and the twin sister. Travelling through Boeotia, Pausanias saw the spring of Narcissus in the territory of Thespiae and called it foolish to believe a grown man could not tell a reflection from a person. He records another version: Narcissus had a twin sister who looked exactly like him. When she died, he went to the spring to see her face in his own reflection. Pausanias also points out that the narcissus flower is older than the story. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, Persephone is reaching for a narcissus at the moment Hades seizes her.

Other versions of Echo

In Ovid, Juno (Hera) punishes Echo for keeping her talking while Jupiter's nymphs escaped. A completely different Echo appears in Longus' novel Daphnis and Chloe. There she is a nymph raised by the Muses who sang beautifully and wanted to remain a virgin, and she rejected Pan. Angry, Pan drove shepherds mad, and they tore her apart and scattered her limbs across the earth. Gaia hid the pieces, which still sing and imitate every sound. In this version the echo is a mutilated voice spread across the hills, not a fading body. Echo also appears beside Pan in other texts, which reflects her place among the mountain nymphs.

In art, and the modern word

Narcissus gazing into the water was one of the most popular subjects in Roman wall painting, and dozens of examples survive from Pompeii and Herculaneum. The 3rd-century writer Philostratus describes such a painting in his Imagines, noting that the painter showed even the dew on the flowers. Later versions include the painting at the Palazzo Barberini in Rome usually attributed to Caravaggio, Nicolas Poussin's Echo and Narcissus in the Louvre, John William Waterhouse's Echo and Narcissus (1903) in Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery, and Salvador Dalí's Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937) at Tate Modern.

The psychological term is newer than many people assume. Havelock Ellis compared a form of self-absorption to Narcissus in 1898, Paul Näcke used the word "narcissism" in 1899, and Freud's essay On Narcissism came in 1914. The word "narcotic" is often said to share a root with Narcissus. Ancient writers did link the flower's name to narke ("numbness") because of its heavy scent, but this is folk etymology, not established fact. More on modern uses at mythology in psychology, and for a focused retelling see the myth of Narcissus.

Ancient sources

  • Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.339–510: the combined tale, from Tiresias' prophecy and Juno's curse on Echo to the pool, Narcissus' death and the flower.
  • Conon, Narrations 24 (summarised by Photius): Narcissus of Thespiae, the suicide of Ameinias and the vengeance of Eros.
  • Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.31.7–9: the spring of Narcissus near Thespiae, the twin-sister version, and the older narcissus of Persephone's story.
  • Longus, Daphnis and Chloe 3.23: Echo as a musical nymph torn apart because of Pan's anger.
  • Philostratus the Elder, Imagines 1.23: a description of a painting of Narcissus at the spring.

Frequently asked questions

Did Echo and Narcissus end up together?

No. Narcissus rejected Echo and died gazing at his own reflection. Echo wasted away until only her voice was left. Neither one's love was ever returned.

Why was Echo cursed?

In Ovid, Hera (Juno) cursed her because Echo had kept the goddess busy with long conversations while Zeus's lovers slipped away. From then on Echo could only repeat the last words she heard.

What flower did Narcissus turn into?

The narcissus, a white flower with a yellow or saffron centre. In Ovid his body vanishes and the flower is found where it had been.

Who punished Narcissus?

In Ovid it is Nemesis, answering the prayer of a rejected admirer. In Conon's version Eros avenges the young man Ameinias, who killed himself after Narcissus rejected him.

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