Not entirely relevant but the other day I was reading this greek myths book my dad brought and you know that thing where you’re flickering through pages and suddenly something makes you stop on one? Well anyway that happened and my eye caught a familiar word – ‘Echo’ which actually turned into a pretty interesting myth. Maybe you’ve heard it, I feel like I should have known it before but whatever.
Here goes the myth of the nymph named (you guessed it) Echo:
Hera, Queen of the Gods, was angry at Echo for a trick she played on her (she’d distracted her with stories so that Zeus, King of the Gods, could sleep with other mountain nymphs) and so punished Echo by taking away her voice. The poor nymph could now only speak the words she heard, hence her name of ‘echo’.
As in all myths, a romance enters in the tale and Echo was of course in love with a very handsome man named Narcissus. Being ever so handsome he had many admirers but he shunned them all, both men and women alike. He was too proud to believe anyone could be worthy of him.
But one day he found himself deserted by his party and alone (or so he thought) in the woods. Echo longed to speak to him but could not do so until he spoke first.
“Is anybody here?” He called.
“Here!” Echo replied, hidden away and watching him with delight.
Narcissus looked sharply around the woods but spied only trees and a peaceful stream.
“Why will you not show yourself?”
“Will you not show yourself?” she was forced to repeat.
“Come let us meet here!”
“Come let us,” Echo breathlessly replied and ran forward to greet him. Her embrace was quickly shaken off and she was cruelly rejected. Heartbroken she wept and wept until only her voice remained…
Narcissus later met his end after he rejected yet another. The disappointed girl called on the gods to avenge this mortifying rejection by making Narcissus feel the pain of unrequited love himself. The god Nemesis headed her prayer and made Narcissus fall in love with his own reflection! Tortured by loving himself but not being able to, erm, have himself, he took his own life and so his blood soaked the ground where later the white flower Narcissist grew.
In another -also tragic- myth, Echo is the beautiful nymph with the brilliant singing voice. But (similarly to Narcissus) she scorns all would-be lovers. This infuriates the God named Pan who decides to ‘teach her a lesson’ and orders her death. The unsuspecting Echo is torn to pieces and her spirit ripped across the Earth. The Goddess of the Earth, Gaia, saves what she can of Echo which turns out to be only her once so admired voice. Her spirit now repeats the last words of others forever more…
There are other myths concerning Echo but I just thought those were pretty cool ^_^
(and btw the two sims in the above picture are actually Addison and Elijah with a little mystic makeover lol)
