Echo

Role: Nymph · First appears: Fable 35

Life events

• Juno punishes Echo for delaying her while Jupiter’s mistresses escaped.(Fable35)
  • With: Juno
  • “Echo, having often amused Juno with her stories, to give time to Jupiter’s mistresses to make their escape, the Goddess, at last, punishes her for the deception.”
• Juno limits Echo’s speech to repeating the last words she hears.(Fable35)
  • With: Juno
  • “But small exercise of this tongue, with which I have been deluded, shall be allowed thee, and a very short use of thy voice.” And she confirmed her threats by the event.”
• Narcissus rejects Echo’s embrace, leaving her hidden and mortified in the woods.(Fable35 · 📍 woods)
  • With: Narcissus
  • “He flies; and as he flies, he exclaims, ‘Remove thy hands from thus embracing me; I will die first, before thou shalt have the enjoyment of me.’”
• Echo’s body wastes away until only her voice and bones remain.(Fable35 · 📍 lonely caves)
  • “Thus rejected, she lies hid in the woods, and hides her blushing face with green leaves, and from that time lives in lonely caves; but yet her love remains, and increases from the mortification of her refusal. Watchful cares waste away her miserable body; leanness shrivels her skin, and all the juices of her body fly off in air. Her voice and her bones alone are left.”
• Echo’s bones become stones, leaving only her voice alive and unseen.(Fable35 · 📍 woods)
  • “Her voice {still} continues, {but} they say that her bones received the form of stones. Since then, she lies concealed in the woods, and is never seen on the mountains: {but} is heard in all {of them}. It is her voice {alone} which remains alive in her.”
• Narcissus wastes away and dies from his consuming love.(Fable36)
  • With: Narcissus
  • “so he, consumed by love, pined away, and wasted by degrees with a hidden flame.”

Fable 35

• with Juno (Echo deceives Juno by distracting her with stories.) “Echo, having often amused Juno with her stories, to give time to Jupiter’s mistresses to make their escape, the Goddess, at last, punishes her for the deception.”
• with Juno (Juno punishes Echo for the deception.) “Echo, having often amused Juno with her stories, to give time to Jupiter’s mistresses to make their escape, the Goddess, at last, punishes her for the deception.”
• admirer->admired with Narcissus “When, therefore, she beheld Narcissus[71] wandering through the pathless forests, and fell in love with him, she stealthily followed his steps; and the more she followed him, with the nearer flame did she burn.”
• with Narcissus (Narcissus rejects Echo's advances.) “He flies; and as he flies, he exclaims, ‘Remove thy hands from thus embracing me; I will die first, before thou shalt have the enjoyment of me.’ She answers nothing but ‘Have the enjoyment of me.’ {Thus} rejected, she lies hid in the woods, and hides her blushing face with green leaves, and from that time lives in lonely caves; but yet her love remains, and increases from the mortification of her refusal.”
• admired: Narcissus “When, therefore, she beheld Narcissus[71] wandering through the pathless forests, and fell in love with him, she stealthily followed his steps; and the more she followed him, with the nearer flame did she burn.”

Fable 36

• admired: Narcissus (Echo had been in love with Narcissus.) “nor {even} his body, which formerly Echo had been in love with, now remained.”

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Extracted from the original text of The Metamorphoses of Ovid. Made with Rho MD.