– from before the glass kind.
– a Greek legend in summary.
——————————————-
Narcissus is the son of a river god and a nymph, who grows to be so beautiful that he finds he is loved and admired wherever he goes yet finds no one to whom he can return the same affection.
Echo is a nymph who is cursed with only being able to repeat the last sounds and words of others.
One day Echo sees Narcissus out in the woods and falls madly in love with him. She makes herself known to him but can only repeat what he says and just like her predecessors – is rejected.
Narcissus catches sight of his own reflection in a still pond and is immediately captivated.
Who is this beauty?
He desires to know!
He reaches into the water to touch the beauty he sees and cries as the image scatters.
He tries to grasp it; he tries to kiss it and even his tears from not having the object that he wants – disturb the watery fleshless beauty.
He protects the image from all disturbance and increasingly enamoured by it he speaks to himself in the water, declaring his love and vowing never to leave the one he loves.
They would die as one.
He begins to waste away receiving neither food nor sleep.
Echo mourns as Narcissus dies never having loved anything other than the carefully protected image of self in the water – deeply desiring and never having.
A flower grows where Narcissus dies and soon even only Echo’s sounds remain.