Narcissus at sixteen seemed to be both
boy and man, and many boys and women
desired him; but in his yielding beauty
was such inflexibility and pride
that no young man or woman ever moved him.

Once, as he drove the trembling deer to his nets,
resounding Echo sighted him, a nymph
unable to keep still when someone spoke,
or speak at all before another did.

Until this time, Echo had a body;
though voluble, she wasn't just a voice,
as she is now—although she used her voice
no oftener than she does now, repeating
just the last words of any speech she heard.

Juno had done this to her, for whenever
Saturn's daughter was poised to apprehend
Jove in his dalliance with a mountain nymph,
Echo, who knew full well what she was doing.
detained the goddess with a long recital
of idle chatter while the nymphs escaped.

But June figured out what she was up to:
Once too often has your tongue beguiled me;
from now on you'll have little use for it!
And that is why Echo skips now to the end
of any speech she hears and then repeats it.

One day Narcissus happened to be roaming
the countryside when Echo happened by,
and at the very sight of him grew hot;
she secretly pursued him through the woods,
her heat increasing as she overtook him,
as torches smeared with highly flammable
sulfur ignite themselves, brought near a flame.

Often she wanted to come on to him,
accost him with endearments, tender prayers—
but her nature won't permit such forwardness:
advances are denied her, though she may
repeat, in her own voice, a sound she hears.

That day he was cut off from his companions,
and called out, Anyone here?

Hear!answered Echo.
Narcissus searches all around, astounded:
cries out more loudly,

Come! His cry returns;
he turns around, but there's no one approaching:
Why do you run away from me? he asks,
and the very same words are given back to him.

He halts, astounded by that other voice:
Here let us come together, he cries out,
and Echo gave her heart with her reply,
Come! Together! And leapt out of the woods,
eager to give her words a little help
by swiftly embracing the desired neck;
he flees, and fleeing, cries, Hands off! No hugs!
I'll die before you'll have your way with me!
You'll have your way with me, Echo replied.

Spurned, shamefaced, she slipped into the woods
and hid herself, living alone in caves
from that time on. And yet her love endured,
increased even, by feading on her sorrow:
unsleeping grief wasted her sad body,
reducing her to dried out skin and bones,
then voice and bones only; her skeleton
turned, they say, into stone. Now, only voice
is left of her, on wooded mountainsides,
unseen by any, although heard by all;
for only the sound that lived in her lives on.

For when he reached his sixteenth year, Narcissus—
who then seemed boy or man—was loved by man:
both youths and young girls wanted him; but hi
had much cold pride within his tender body:
no youth, no girl could ever touch his heart.

One day, as he was driving frightened deer
into his nets, Narcissus met a nymph:
resounding Echo, one whose speech was strange;
for when she heard the words of others, she
could not keep silent, yet she could not be
the first to speak. Then she still had a body—
she was not just a voice. Though talkative
she used her voice as she still uses it:
of many words her ears have caught, she just
repeats the final part of what she has heard.

It's Juno who had punished Echo so.
Time after time, when Juno might have caught
her Jove philandering on the mountaintops
with young nymphs, Echo, cunningly, would stop
the goddess on her path; she'd talk and talk,
to give her sister nymphs just time enough
to slip away before they were found out.
As soon as Juno had seen through that plot,
she menaced Echo: From now on you'll not
have much use of the voice that tricked me so.
The threat was followed by the fact. And Echo
can mime no more than the concluding sounds
of any words she's heard.

When Echo saw
Narcissus roaming through the lonely fields,
she was inflamed with love, and—furtively—
she followed in his footsteps. As she drew
still closer, closer, so her longing grew
more keen, more hot—as sulfur, quick to burn,
smeared round a torch's top bursts into flame
when there are other fires close to it.
How often, as she tracked him, did she pray
that she might tempt him with caressing words
and tender pleas. but she cannot begin
to speak: her nature has forbidden this;
and so she waits for what her state permits:
to catch the sounds that she can then give back
with her own voice.

One day, by chance, the boy—
now separated from his faithful friends—
cried out: Is anyone nearby? Nearby,
was Echo's answering cry. And, stupefied,
he looks around and shouts: Come! Come!—and she
calls out, Come! Come! to him who'd called. Then he
turns round and, seeing no one, calls again:
Why do you flee from me? And the reply
repeats the final sounds of his outcry.
That answer snares him; he persists, calls out:
Let's meet. And with the happiest reply
that ever was to leave her lips, she cries:
Let's meet; then, seconding her words, she rushed
out of the woods, that she might fling her arms
around the neck she longed to clasp. But he
retreats and, fleeing, shouts: Do not touch me!
Don't cling to me! I'd sooner die than say
I'm yours!; and echo answered him. I'm yours.
So, scorned and spurned, she hides within the woods;
there she, among the trees, conceals her face,
her shame; since then she lives in lonely caves.
But, though repulsed, her love persists; it grows
on grief. She cannot sleep; she wastes away.
The sap has fled her wrinkled, wretched flesh.

Her voice and bones are all that's left; and then
her voice alone: her bones, they say, were turned
to stone. So she is hidden in the woods
and never can be seen on mountain slopes,
though everywhere she can be heard; the power
of sound still lives in her.

Martin, Charles, trans. Metamorphoses. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2005. 104–106.

Mandelbaum, Allen, trans. The Metamorphoses of Ovid. New York: Harcourt Brace, 1995. 91–93.