Echo and Narcissus
from Ovid, Metamorphoses III, 342-510
translated by David Lake
In ancient days, when river-gods made sport
with elven nymphs, Cephisos paid rough court
to one fair elf, Liriope by name,
whose son would one day win peculiar fame.
The lovely nymph brought forth a lovely child
on whom, even as a baby, lovers smiled,
Narcissus named; his mother asked the sage
Tiresias, if her son would see old age.
Thus said the prophet to the lady elf:
“Yes, if he does not come to know himself.” 10
Long time the augur’s saying seemed quite vain,
while the lad grew; but later things made plain
the hidden meaning, and its truth was proved
when the boy strangely died, and madly loved.
Cephisos’ son, now grown to sixteen years,
at once a boy and youthful man appears;
and many a maid and many a youth desired him –
but he loved none – no heat in answer fired him;
for in that tender form was such hard pride,
that he each maid and every youth denied. 20
In hunting timid deer he passed his days;
then at the nets one day he caught the gaze
of one loquacious nymph, a lady elf
who has no power to start a speech herself,
nor yet keep silence; she can only go
repeating your last words: she’s called Echo.
At that time Echo, though with chatter shrill
she was a voice, she had a body still –
but had, what she has now, that doom absurd,
of saying just the last thing she had heard. 30
Juno had made her thus, as penalty
for helping in great Jove’s adultery;
for when a nymph lay underneath the sky
and the sky’s lord, then Echo, standing by,
would hold his goddess-wife in talk all day –
that gave the girls good time to run away.
When Juno understood the crafty wrong
done her by Echo, she said, “Now, that tongue
of yours which has beguiled me, caused me grief,
will be reduced to speeches very brief.” 40
The event confirmed the threat: what Echo’s heard,
she echoes, and has always the last word.
Now when she saw Narcissus’ lovely form
in that lone place, Echo with love grew warm,
and followed secretly the ways he turned –
the more she followed close, the more she burned;
as when a torch, that men with sulphur smear,
kindles to flame, when other flame draws near.
How often does she wish with loving words
to approach him – but her handicap affords 50
no chance of that – yet what sheer chance admits,
to use his words – to that she turns her wits.
It happened that the boy had wandered on
some lonely path, and all his friends were gone.
He called aloud, from that deserted track,
“Anyone here?” – and “Here!” cried Echo back.
Amazed, he looks all round to find the bawler,
and loud cries “Come!” – “Come!” Echo calls the caller.
He looks behind – sees no-one; questions “Why
d’you fly me?” – and “You fly me”’s the reply. 60
He thinks another calls, says “Here let’s meet,”
and Echo no more glad sound could repeat.
“Let’s meet!” she answered, and now making good
her words with actions, leapt out from the wood,
hoping to hug the neck she longs to clasp –
but he refuses, and evades her grasp.
He runs away, and running cries, “Hands off!
This sort of thing – I’ve had it, quite enough.
I’d sooner die before I’d have you clutch me!”
She answers nothing but “I’d have you clutch me!” 70
Now scorned, into the lonely woods she goes,
and hides in leaves her shamed face and her woes.
(And in such places lurks she to this day –
in tree-hid grottoes still she likes to stay.)
But still her love remains, and with the smart
of her repulse grows stronger in her heart.
Her wretched form her sleepless cares begin
to waste; she dwindles; wrinkles mar her skin;
her juices dry; she’s only voice and bone,
then only voice – her bones have turned to stone. 80
Since then no more by wood or hill she’s found,
but all men hear her: she lives as a sound.
Thus the boy mocked her, thus he mocked again
all nymphs of waves and hills, thus many men;
then one of these raised hands to heaven above:
“So too may he love, so not win his love,”
he prayed; the vengeance goddess heard his prayer.
There was a clear pool, with bright water fair,
a spring no goat-herd marred, nor hill-goat stirred,
nor any other cattle, neither bird 90
nor beast, nor any fall of bough from tree,
for grass grew round, from trees and bushes free,
grass that the pool fed; circling woods gave shade
to that sweet lawn, that pool, and all the glade.
The boy once, hot from hunting, seeking cool,
found this fine place, and lay down by the pool.
While slaking thirst, another thirst begins;
while drinking, his own image on him wins
to love unbodied hope; body he thinks
what is mere shade, and hopeless passion drinks. 100
With gaze fixed on himself he lies to marvel,
still as a statue carved from Parian marble.
He sees his eyes as twin stars, thinks his hair
fit for Apollo, fit for Bacchus fair;
beholds smooth cheeks, and ivory neck, and face
to whose fair form rose mixed with snow adds grace.
All he admires, that men admired and loved;
he wants himself, approves, himself approved;
he seeks, is sought; at once inflames and burns.
How often to the treacherous pool he turns, 110
and plants vain kisses, and attempts to clasp –
that seen but watery neck evades his grasp!
What’s seen, he knows not; but what’s seen gives fires;
the error both deceives him, and inspires.
Poor fool, why vainly clasp a fleeting show?
What you want’s nowhere; turn, what’s loved will go!
What you see now is your reflection, made
into an apparition’s empty shade:
it has no self; with you it comes and stays;
it will leave with you, if you’ll leave this gaze! 120
Him neither food, him neither rest, alas,
can draw from thence, but stretched on shady grass,
that teasing form with ever-hungry eye
he sees, and from his own gaze starts to die.
Raising himself a little, he extends
his arms, and to the wood that nearby stands,
“O wood,” he cries, “has any crueller loved?
You know, for you fine tryst to many proved.
Can you find any (for to ages high
your memory mounts) who pined away as I? 130
I love and see, but what I see and love
I cannot find” – these words in circles move
without escape – so deep is love’s illusion –
“and what is more – what doubles our confusion –
we’re parted not by mighty seas afar,
nor roads, nor hills, nor town gates shut with bar.
It’s just a little water parts us both!
He to be held himself is nothing loth:
for often as the clear pool I embrace,
so often he lifts up his upturned face. 140
You’d think he could be touched: so little parts
us two, and blocks the love of loving hearts.
Whoe’er you are, come out here! Boy unique,
why shun me – where d’you go when you I seek?
My form, my years are not for you to scorn –
the nymphs have loved me well since I was born.
Some hope you offer me with friendly face;
to embrace I try – you also seem to embrace.
I laugh, you laugh back; when I weep, you too
have wept, and when I nod, you nod also; 150
your moving lips suspicion breed in me
you give back words I hear not, only see…
Oh, he is I! That image owns my name!
I burn for me; I cause and feel one flame.
What shall I do? Be wooed or woo? What for?
I want my own; my own wealth makes me poor.
O that I now could be removed from me –
strange wish in lover, what I love to flee.
And now my grief is sapping all my strength;
of life to me remains but little length. 160
I am extinguished in my prime of age;
Death I don’t mind – my pains death will assuage.
I wish my loved one could outlive my death;
but as things are, we’ll both die in one breath.”
He ends, and madly to the same face nears,
and now disturbs the whole lake with his tears.
The ripples make the boy’s reflection go,
and when he sees this, he cries out, “Ah, woe!
Where do you flee? Stay, stay, and do not hurt me!
You cruel one, I beg you, don’t desert me! 170
And though forbid to touch you – my great sadness –
let me, just looking, feel my painful madness!”
Grieving, he plucked away his tunic-vest,
and with pale palms rained blows on his bare breast.
His breast when struck displayed a rosy light,
as apples do, when one part still is white,
and one part pink; or grapes that varied grow
in half-ripe clusters, and some purple show.
When he saw this (the water clear again)
he could no longer bear his lingering pain. 180
As golden wax with gentle heat’s undone,
as morning frosts thaw with the warming sun,
so is he wasted by his love’s desire,
and slowly is consumed with hidden fire;
his fair complexion mixed with rose at length
loses its colors; gone is all his strength,
the vigor that so lately pleasing proved –
that body’s gone, which Echo once had loved.
Now when she saw him wasting, though her mind
retained its wrath and wrongs, yet still she pined, 190
and often as the poor boy cried “Alas!”
she answered with identical “Alas!”
And when he thumped his shoulders, she also
returned that sound of sorrow, every blow.
His last words, as he gazed upon the pool,
were these: “Ah boy, I loved you like a fool!”
The glade returned those words; and when in woe
he said “Farewell!” – “Farewell!” said Echo too.
Down came his weary head upon the grass,
yet still his look looked on the watery glass; 200
Death closed his eyes, those eyes that still were gazing
on their lord’s beauty, finding it amazing.
In Hades, too, his spirit thought it cool
to take a good look in the Stygian pool…
His naiad sisters and the dryads mourned,
and Echo every mournful sound returned.
And now they ready all the funeral gear –
but when they search, they see no body there;
nothing to put on pyre or in a tomb –
instead of bones, they find a little bloom, 210
yellow at centre, white in circling rays,
of species then unknown, but in our days
narcissus named, whose pretty petals hold
a soul that makes of self a centrefold.