There was once a lovely nymph named Echo.

Echo had a special gift: she spoke beautifully. Her voice was musical, her stories were enchanting. But she also had one little problem: she talked too much. She chattered without stopping, told tales, made jokes, and could keep a conversation going for hours and hours. The other nymphs found it funny and adored her.

The goddess Hera, however, did not find it funny at all.

It so happened that Zeus, Hera's husband, liked to slip away from Olympus to visit the nymphs on Earth. And Echo, knowing this, helped Zeus.

Whenever Hera came down looking for her husband, Echo would hold her with endless conversation, telling one story after another, never letting the goddess take a step. Meanwhile, Zeus had time to escape.

One day, Hera saw through the trick.

"Echo, you have deceived me. You used your voice to cover for Zeus."

Hera was furious, and she decided to punish the nymph in the very thing she loved most.

"You love talking so much? Then from now on you shall never speak first. You will only be able to repeat the last words you hear."

"No! Please..." Echo began.

But it was too late. The curse was already cast. Echo tried to say something, anything, and nothing came out. Her mouth opened, and no words of her own appeared. From then on, all she could do was wait for someone else to speak... and repeat.

Echo was heartbroken. She, who had loved talking so, was now a prisoner of silence.

The other nymphs tried to comfort her. They asked if she was all right, and Echo could only answer "...all right?" They begged her to speak with them, and Echo repeated "...with them." It was too painful, having so much to say and being unable to say anything.

Little by little, Echo drew away from everyone and took to wandering alone through the forests.

One day, Echo saw the most beautiful youth who had ever lived: Narcissus.

Narcissus was the son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope. When he was born, the prophet Tiresias made his mother a strange prediction: the boy would live a long life... as long as he never came to know himself. No one understood it, and in time the prophecy was forgotten.

Narcissus grew up dazzlingly handsome, with golden hair and eyes as blue as the sky. Everyone fell in love with him: girls, boys, nymphs. But Narcissus was vain and cruel.

"You want my love?" he would say, with scorn. "No one is good enough for me."

He rejected them all with harsh words, telling one that she was far too plain, another that he did not deserve even to look at him. He broke one heart after another, without a trace of pity, convinced that he was above everyone.

It was this Narcissus that Echo met in the forest.

Echo hid behind the trees. One glance, and she fell hopelessly in love.

She wanted to speak to him, to tell him she thought him beautiful, that she loved him. But she could not: she could only repeat. So she followed him silently through the forest, waiting for a chance.

Narcissus sensed there was someone near.

"Who's there?"

"...who's there?" repeated Echo.

"Show yourself!"

"...yourself!" repeated Echo.

"Come to me," called Narcissus.

"...to me!" — and Echo ran out from behind the trees, her arms open wide.

Echo embraced Narcissus, her eyes shining with love.

But Narcissus pushed her away in disgust.

"Get away. I would rather die than let you touch me."

Echo was shattered. She tried to speak, to explain, to plead — and could only repeat pieces of his words: "...touch me... touch me..." Narcissus laughed cruelly at that, asked if she truly thought she deserved his love, and walked away.

Echo sank to her knees, weeping, while her voice repeated, against her will, the last words of the young man who had scorned her.

Echo's sorrow was so great that she stopped eating and sleeping. She thought only of Narcissus.

The days passed, then the weeks, then the months. Echo faded slowly, and her body wasted away, growing ever lighter, thinner, more transparent, until all that remained of her was her voice.

That is why, to this day, when someone calls out in the mountains, Echo answers. She is still there, repeating. Still remembering Narcissus.

But Echo was not the only one Narcissus had scorned. There were dozens, hundreds, all suffering the same hurt.

One rejected youth raised his hands to the sky and prayed to Nemesis, the goddess who sets injustices right:

"Nemesis, let Narcissus feel what we feel. Let him love without being loved. Let him suffer as we have suffered."

Nemesis heard the prayer. And she decided that Narcissus would come to know, at last, the love that cannot be returned.

On a hot day, Narcissus was hunting in the forest. Tired and thirsty, he found a spring of crystal-clear water, still as a mirror, and knelt down to drink.

And he saw his own reflection.

Narcissus froze. He did not realize it was himself: he thought there was a youth inside the water, the most beautiful being his eyes had ever seen.

"Who are you?" he whispered. "I have never seen anyone so beautiful."

Narcissus reached out to touch the youth in the water. But the moment his fingers met the surface, the reflection trembled and broke apart.

"No, come back..."

He waited. The water grew calm, and the face returned. Narcissus tried to kiss it, and again the reflection dissolved into ripples. He begged it not to leave him, said that he loved it — and so Narcissus felt, for the first time, exactly what he had made others feel: a desperate love that could not be returned.

Narcissus could not leave.

He stayed at the edge of the spring, gazing at the reflection, speaking to it. The hours passed, and then the days. He did not eat, did not drink, did not sleep. He only gazed, bound to his own face, never able to reach it.

Slowly, Narcissus began to fade. His body grew weak, thin, pale — just as had happened to Echo.

Echo, now only a voice, watched it all from the mountains. Even after such cruelty, she loved him still.

When Narcissus sighed "alas for me," Echo repeated softly: "...for me." When he wept, she wept with him, in her own way, giving back every word.

At last, Narcissus died there, at the water's edge, gazing at the reflection. His final words were a farewell to his impossible love.

And Echo, weeping, repeated: "...impossible love."

When the nymphs came to carry Narcissus's body away for burial, it had vanished. In the place where he had lain, a flower was growing: delicate, white with a yellow center, bowed like someone gazing into the water.

"It is Narcissus," said the nymphs. "The gods have turned him into a flower."

The flower was given the name narcissus. And to this day, narcissus flowers grow near the water, always leaning over, as if contemplating their own reflection — remembering forever the youth who knew how to love only himself.

And Echo?

Her voice still echoes in the mountains. When someone shouts "hello," she answers "...lo." When someone says a kind word, she gives it back, a little softer.

Echo is still there, repeating, remembering. A voice without a body, keeping in her memory a love that was never returned.