I like the stories of ancient cultures, the Greeks, Egyptians, Romans and among others. The history of the old gods can be fanciful but I like the imagination that can be given to a story, and then there is our imagination, which flies to the rhythm of the reading forging our own adventure.
The history of Greek gods and those of their progeny is one of those that I will advance in this chapter. It’s a sad love story, although many love stories about the nymph named Echo are read, today I’ll tell you one between Echo and Narcissus.
Echo was a nymph of the woods who was raised by beautiful goddesses in charge of giving gifts in relation to the talents that the inhabitants of their environment should have. As such, they gave Echo the gift of the heavenly voice, hearing her voice was a delight and they say that no voice could ever compare to the sweet melody of her voice.
Meanwhile Narcissus was the son of the god of clear waters, rivers, and had the gift of beauty to the point that he was the most beautiful man in the world. Mythology says that he fell in love with himself. He couldn't stop looking at his reflection in the waters and saying pleasant words to himself for his great beauty.
Echo did not go unnoticed by the gods, for having her gift of the voice. Even Zeus, the god of gods and worthy representative of infidelity falls in love with the beautiful voice that came from Echo's lips, but for Echo, what Zeus felt towards her did not matter to her, so she didn’t listen to his advances. Echo did serve as an intermediary to Zeus in his continuous crushes, serving as an eloquent conversationalist and distracted Hera while he acted with his new love on duty. This interference from Echo was not overlooked by the goddess Hera, the protector of marriage and wife of the god Zeus, since she could not attack her husband for the deity that he was, she attacked Echo with a curse; She withdrew the gift given by the muses of the mountain and left her only a sad sound repeated at the end of her words.
Echo ran to the mountains to hide her shame. She couldn’t articulate a word, only say the last thing she heard someone else say, so in the forest she repeated the song of a bird or the sound of the river.
But it was there that she saw Narcissus and fell in love with him. She was hiding behind a tree while he looked at his reflection on the river. She fell in love with his great beauty, he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen in her life, and one day while Narcissus marveled at his great beauty he heard a noise and asked, almost immediately:
"Is someone else here?"
To which Echo answered, on the other side of the tree "Here."
Narcissus says "Come" to which Echo can only reply "Come."
She proceeds to come out of her hiding place behind the tree and appears in front of Narcissus to declare her love and hug him, but when he sees and hears her he becomes angry and rejects her, brutally mocking her voice, because she only repeated the last words said to her…
She, very sad and disappointed, hid deeper into the mountains, among the caves and from there she wasted away, without eating or worrying about herself until she died. The mythology says that she has not died because she continues to repeat the last words or sounds forever, in any remote place. So what you hear deep in a cave when making a sound is Echo's sad response at the end of an articulated voice. It’s what is known as our echo.
Meanwhile Narcissus does not give importance to his meeting with the nymph and remains absorbed with his reflection in the river.
But the gods, annoyed with Narcissus's behavior by rejecting all those who declared their love to him, come to Nemesis the goddess of revenge and she casts a spell on Narcissus causing him to fall deeply in love with his own image, even more than before.
And one day when he saw his reflection in the river and could not bear not having that with him, he called his reflection and said "Come.”
When the echo of the mountains repeats "Come", Narcissus believes he’s hearing his beloved reflection and throws himself into the water, drowning in the desperate search for his love.
They say that his father, Cephissus, the God of rivers paid him a tribute in his honor, and at the place of his death he caused a flower named Narcissus to emerge.
Greek stories are always strangely filled with tragedies such as this one