‘What’s mine is yours!’

Bk III: 359-401 How Juno altered Echo’s speech

Echo still had a body then and was not

merely a voice. But though she was garrulous,

she had no other trick of speech than she has

now: she can repeat the last words out of many.

Juno made her like that, because often when

she might have caught the nymphs lying

beneath her Jupiter, on the mountain slopes,

Echo knowingly held her in long conversations,

while the nymphs fled. When Saturnia realised

this she said ‘I shall give you less power over

that tongue by which I have been deluded, and

the briefest ability to speak’ and what she

threatened she did. Echo only repeats the last of

what is spoken and returns the words she hears.

Now when she saw Narcissus wandering

through the remote fields, she was inflamed,

following him secretly, and the more she

followed the closer she burned with fire, no

differently than inflammable sulphur, pasted

round the tops of torches, catches fire, when a

flame is brought near it. O how often she wants

to get close to him with seductive words, and

call him with soft entreaties! Her nature denies

it, and will not let her begin, but she is ready for

what it will allow her to do, to wait for sounds,

to which she can return words.

By chance, the boy, separated from his

faithful band of followers, had called out ‘Is

anyone here?’ and ‘Here’ Echo replied. He is

astonished, and glances everywhere, and shouts

in a loud voice ‘Come to me!’ She calls as he

calls. He looks back, and no one appearing

behind, asks ‘Why do you run from me?’ and

receives the same words as he speaks. He

stands still, and deceived by the likeness to an

answering voice, says ‘Here, let us meet

together’. And, never answering to another

sound more gladly, Echo replies ‘Together’,

and to assist her words comes out of the woods

to put her arms around his neck, in longing. He

runs from her, and running cries ‘Away with

these encircling hands! May I die before what’s

mine is yours. She answers, only ‘What’s mine

is yours!’

Scorned, she wanders in the woods and

hides her face in shame among the leaves, and

from that time on lives in lonely caves. But still

her love endures, increased by the sadness of

rejection. Her sleepless thoughts waste her sad

form, and her body’s strength vanishes into the

air. Only her bones and the sound of her voice

are left. Her voice remains, her bones, they say,

were changed to shapes of stone. She hides in

the woods, no longer to be seen on the hills, but

to be heard by everyone. It is sound that lives in

her.

:(

Ovid

Metamorphoses

Translated by A.S.Kline