Echo and Narcissus

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Echo and Narcissus was a poem written by the Roman poet Ovid as part of his monumental work Metamorphoses. It combines two ancient legends: Echo, the wood-nymph, and Narcissus, a hunter who falls in love with his own reflection. This was the first time that the two legends had been told together.

This poem is in Book III of the Metamorphoses, and tells the story of a "talkative nymph" who "yet a chatterbox, had no other use of speech than she has now, namely that she could repeat only the last words out of many." She falls in love with Narcissus, whom she catches sight of when he his "chasing frightened deer into his nets." Eventually, after "burning with a closer flame," Echo's presence is revealed to Narcissus, who after a comic, yet tragic scene, rejects her love. Echo wastes away, until she "remains a voice" and "is heard by all." This of course refers to a literal "echo".

Then, Narcissus "tired from both his enthusiasm for hunting and from the heat" rests by a spring, and whilst drinking, "a new thirst grows inside him" and he is "captivated by the image of the beauty he has seen" and falls deeply in love with "all the things for which he himself is admired." He then wastes away with love for himself, echoing the manner in which Echo did earlier on. A while later his body is gone, and in its place is a narcissus flower.

This myth plays an important role in the work of the French philosopher Jacques Derrida.