In the wood a voice was waiting for somebody. That voice could not speak first, and until somebody else spoke it could make no sound at all.
Footsteps came from far off, and a young man who had lost his companions while chasing a deer was walking alone. The voice held its breath behind a tree.
The young man stopped and looked around. “Is anybody there?” And the wood answered. “Anybody there?”
A Voice With Only Last Words Left
Echo was a nymph of the mountains who talked a great deal and was good company, and everybody liked talking with her. That gift turned against her.
Whenever Zeus was off among the nymphs, Echo held Hera in place, stringing one entertaining story onto the next without end. While Hera could not get away, the others scattered.
Hera worked it out. “I shall leave you half a tongue, so that from now you will be able to return only the end of what another has said.”
From that day Echo could not speak first, and however much she wanted to say, it was no use. She had to live inside the words other people gave her.
Somebody Met in the Wood
Narcissus was a famously beautiful young man, and many people wanted him while he looked at none of them. From the moment she saw him Echo followed behind.
She wanted to go near and could not speak, so she waited only for him to say something, anything, first. That day Narcissus lost his companions and was alone.
“Come out here.” “Out here.” “Why do you run from me?” “From me?” “Let us meet here.” “Meet here.”
Echo ran out from behind the tree with her arms open, and Narcissus pulled away and said, “Get off. I will die before I give you power over me.” “I give you power over me.”
Let Him Know It Too
After that Echo did not come out in front of people, and lived in caves and under cliffs. Eating and sleeping no more, she wasted away until only bones were left.
The bones became stone and only the voice remained. Still now, when somebody calls in the mountains, she gives back the end of it, still without one word of her own.
Echo was not the only one turned away, and several people had given their hearts to Narcissus and been sent off. One of them looked up at the sky and prayed.
“Let him love somebody too, and let him not be able to have that person.” Nemesis heard it.
A Pool Nobody Had Touched
Deep in the wood there was a pool nobody had touched, and the water was clear as silver, without one ripple. Narcissus, tired from hunting, lay down at its edge.
Reaching to drink, he saw a face in the water, and he froze where he was. He had never seen anybody so beautiful.
When he put out a hand, that person put out a hand. When he tried to kiss, the water shook and it was gone, and when he waited quietly it came back and looked at him.
He asked it of the water. “Why do you keep away from me?” And at last he knew. “That is me.”
The Narcissus Flower
Even knowing, he could not get up. “I have so much that I can have nothing.” He was standing in his own way.
He did not leave the water, and neither ate nor slept, but looked only at that face. Far off, Echo was giving back the ends of his words.
“Farewell,” he said at the last. “Farewell,” the wood answered. When people came looking, there was no body in that place.
One flower stood at the water’s edge, yellow at the centre and white around it, its head bent and turned towards the water. People called that flower a narcissus.
Today, A Voice and a Face
The two of them were shut in from opposite sides. Echo was shut in because she could not say her own words, and Narcissus because he heard nothing but his own.
So what passed between them was not a conversation but one person’s words coming back. What Narcissus saw at the water was himself in the end too.
For love to begin, something that is not me has to be there, not somebody who returns my words but somebody who says different ones. Love only begins in bearing that difference.