Eho in Narcis

Besedilo

Eho in Narcis

Famed throughout the cities of Aonia, he gave unfailing answers to the people who sought his counsel. The first to put his trustworthiness and prophetic words to the test was blue-watered Liriope. Once, in his winding stream, Cephisus had enfolded her, imprisoned her within his waters, and taken her by force. The lovely nymph, her womb now full, gave birth to a child whom even then the nymphs might well have loved, and named him Narcissus. Asked whether the boy would live to see the long years of ripe old age, the prophetic seer replied, “If he never knows himself.”

For a long time the prophet’s words seemed empty; but the outcome, the events, his manner of death, and his strange madness proved them true. For the son of Cephisus had added one year to three times five, and might have seemed either boy or young man. Many youths and many girls desired him. But in that tender beauty there was such hard pride that no youth, no girl, could touch his heart.

As he drove frightened deer into his nets, he caught the eye of the clear-voiced nymph who had never learned to keep silent when another spoke, nor to speak first herself: resounding Echo. Echo still had a body then, and was not merely a voice; yet, talkative as she was, her mouth had no more power than it has now: to repeat the last words of a longer speech. Juno had brought this about. For often, when she might have caught nymphs lying with her Jupiter upon the mountain, Echo would knowingly detain the goddess in long conversation while the nymphs escaped. When Saturn’s daughter understood, she said, “Of this tongue that has deceived me, you shall have little power, and of your voice the briefest use.”

She made good her threat. Yet Echo still repeats the sounds at the end of a speech, returning the words she hears. So when she saw Narcissus wandering through the lonely countryside and burned with love, she followed secretly in his footsteps; and the more she followed, the nearer the flame that warmed her, just as the quick-burning sulphur smeared around the tips of torches catches fire when a flame is brought close.

Oh, how often she longed to approach him with tender words and offer gentle pleas! Her nature thwarted her and would not let her begin. But she was ready to do what it allowed: to wait for sounds to which she could return her words. By chance the boy, separated from his faithful band of companions, had called, “Is anyone here?” and Echo had answered, “Here!” Astonished, he looked in every direction and shouted loudly, “Come!” She called to him as he called.

He looked behind him, and when no one came, he asked again, “Why do you run from me?” and received the very words he spoke. He persisted, deceived by the semblance of an answering voice: “Let us meet here!” he said. Never more gladly answering any sound, Echo returned, “Let us meet!” And, making good her own words, she came out of the wood to throw her arms around the neck she longed to clasp.

He fled, and as he fled he cried, “Keep your arms from embracing me! I would die before I let you have me.” She returned nothing but “I let you have me.” Rejected, she hid in the woods, concealing her shamed face among the leaves, and from that time lived in lonely caves. Yet her love endured, and grew with the pain of rejection. Sleepless sorrow wasted her wretched body; her skin shrivelled with thinness, and all her body’s moisture vanished into the air. Only her voice and bones remained: her voice lives on; her bones, they say, took the form of stone.

Ever since, she hides in the woods, unseen on any mountain, but heard by all: only sound lives on in her. So he had mocked her, and other nymphs born of waters or mountains; so, before them, he had mocked the company of men. Then one he had scorned raised his hands to heaven and cried, “May he too love, and never possess the one he loves!” The goddess of Rhamnus granted the just prayer.

There was a clear spring, silver-bright with shining water, untouched by shepherds, by goats grazing on the mountain, or any other herd; no bird or beast had troubled it, nor any branch fallen from a tree. Grass grew around it, nourished by the water nearby, and a wood that would let no sunlight warm the place. Here the boy, weary from the hunt and the heat, lay down, drawn by the beauty of the place and by the spring.

And as he sought to quench his thirst, another thirst arose. As he drank, entranced by the beauty of the image he saw, he loved a bodiless hope, taking for a body what was only water. He gazed in wonder at himself, and lay motionless, his face unchanged, like a statue carved from Parian marble. Stretched upon the ground, he watched the twin stars of his own eyes, his hair worthy of Bacchus, worthy of Apollo, his beardless cheeks, his ivory neck, the beauty of his face, and the blush mingled with its snowy whiteness; he marvelled at all that made him marvellous.

Unknowing, he desired himself: the admirer was himself admired; he sought and was sought, kindling the fire that burned him. How often he planted futile kisses on the treacherous spring! How often he plunged his arms into the water, reaching for the neck he saw, yet never clasped himself within them! He did not know what he was seeing, but what he saw set him ablaze, and the same illusion that deceived his eyes urged them on.

Trusting boy, why vainly grasp at a fleeting image? What you seek is nowhere; turn away, and you will lose what you love. What you see is the shadow of a reflected image: it has nothing of its own; it comes and stays with you, and will leave with you, if you can leave. Neither the need for food nor the need for rest could draw him away. Stretched out upon the shaded grass, he watched that deceptive beauty with insatiable eyes, and through his own eyes perished. Raising himself a little and stretching his arms towards the woods around him, he said, “O woods, has anyone ever loved more cruelly?

You know, for you have offered many lovers a welcome hiding place. Through all the ages of your lives, do you remember anyone who wasted away like this? I see him, and he delights me; yet what I see and what delights me I cannot find: so deep is the delusion that possesses his lover. And to make my grief still greater, no vast sea divides us, no road, no mountains, no city walls with bolted gates: a little water keeps us apart. He too longs to be held: for whenever I offer kisses to the clear water, he strains towards me, lifting his face to mine.

You would think I could touch him: so little stands between us lovers. Whoever you are, come out here! Why deceive me, peerless boy, and where do you go when I reach for you? Surely neither my looks nor my age should make you flee; nymphs too have loved me. Your friendly face holds out some hope to me, and when I stretch my arms towards you, you stretch yours in return.

When I smile, you smile back; often I have seen your tears when I was weeping. You answer my nods with yours, and, as far as I can judge by the movement of your lovely lips, you return words that never reach my ears. I am he! I understand; my own image no longer deceives me. I burn with love for myself; I kindle the flames I suffer. What shall I do? Be wooed, or woo? And what then shall I ask?

What I desire is with me: abundance has made me poor. Oh, if only I could part from my own body! A strange wish for a lover: I wish what I love were far away!— And now grief drains my strength; little time remains of my life, and I am quenched in the first bloom of youth. Death is no burden to me, for in death I shall lay down my sorrows; but I wish the one I love might live on longer.

Now we two, united in one soul, shall die together.” He spoke, and in his madness returned to the same face; his tears troubled the waters, and the image grew dim in the ruffled pool. When he saw it vanishing, he cried, “Where are you fleeing? Stay! Do not cruelly desert the one who loves you! Let me look at what I cannot touch, and feed my wretched passion.” And in his grief he pulled his robe down from its upper edge and beat his naked breast with marble-white hands.

His breast, struck by the blows, took on a delicate blush, just as apples are white in one part and red in another, or as grapes in varied clusters take on a purple hue before they ripen. As soon as he saw this in the water, now clear again, he could bear no more. As yellow wax melts before a gentle fire, or morning frost in the warmth of the sun, so, wasted by love, he melted, slowly consumed by a hidden flame.

No longer did his colour mingle red with white; gone were his vigour, his strength, and all that had so lately pleased his eyes; nor did the body Echo once had loved remain. Yet when she saw him, though still angry and remembering, she grieved; and whenever the unhappy boy cried, “Alas!” she repeated, “Alas!” in her answering voice. And when he struck his arms with his own hands, she too returned the same sound of mourning.

His last words, gazing into the water as he always did, were these: “Alas, beloved boy, loved in vain!” The place returned the very words, and when he said, “Farewell,” Echo too said, “Farewell!” He laid his weary head upon the green grass; death closed the eyes that marvelled at their master’s beauty. Even then, after he had been received into the underworld, he gazed at himself in the waters of the Styx. His sisters, the Naiads, mourned and laid their shorn hair as an offering to their brother; the Dryads mourned, and Echo answered their lament.

Already they were preparing the pyre, the brandished torches, and the bier: his body was nowhere to be found. In its place they discovered a saffron-coloured flower, its heart encircled by white petals.