Saturday, May 1, 2010

Myths and Legends: Echo and Narcissus

Echo and Narcissus. To find out more about Echo and her love for Narcissus, see this Wikipedia article: link; for information about the image: image source.

Echo was a nymph who had the misfortune of being very talkative, but only able to repeat the things that others say (hence "Echo"). To make things worse, she fell in love with Narcissus, a beautiful but vain young man who rejected her love. Echo wasted away and died (which is why the echoes you can hear even today are disembodied), while Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection seen in the water; he too wasted away and died. You can read the story in Ovid's Metamorphoses.

You can also find more myths and legends for the week of April 29 - May 5 here. For more information and links to the actual javascript code, see the Myths & Legends Widget Reference Page.