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Narcissus was a beautiful boy of 16. He was so proud, however, of how beautiful he was that he wouldn't pay attention to any of the young girls who loved him.
One day he was hunting in the forest, when a nymph called Echo saw him. She saw Narcissus wandering in the woods and immediately fell in love with him. She began to follow him. How much she wanted to speak to him! But this she couldn't do. She didn't have the power to speak first; she could only repeat the last words of others. So she had to wait for him to speak so that she could use his own words.
Narcissus got lost and called out, "Is there anyone here?" Echo answered him, "Here!" He looked around in amazement.
"Come to me then!" he shouted, and at once came Echo's reply. "Come to me then." Again he looked around. He saw no one.
He called out, "Why are you avoiding me? Let us meet here."
"Meet here," Echo answered, and she came out of the woods where she had been hiding. She went up to Narcissus and wanted to throw her arms around his neck.
He ran away from her, yelling, "Take your hands off me. Don't touch me!"
She was extremenly disappointed and ran off into the woods, into a lonely cave. She suffered and her body wasted away (slowly disappeared). Finally, she became so thin that her body vanished. Only her voice remained.
She is still hiding in the woods to this day. No one can see her, but everyone can hear her, since her voice, but only her voice, is still alive.
Narcissus loved no one but himself, so the god, Nemesis, punished him. Narcissus came to a grassy area around a shining silvery pool of water. He lay down to take a drink. As he looked down into the water, he saw his reflection, and fell in love with what he saw.
Neither hunger nor desire to sleep could tear him away from this place. Narcissus continued to gaze at the beautiful image of himself. He couldn't leave his beautiful reflection. And so, lying there, he began to waste away, like yellow candle wax in the heat. He let his tired head drop on the ground and died on that spot.
Echo and other nymphs prepared for Narcissus's funeral, but when they were ready, they couldn't find his body anywhere. In its place they found a flower. It had a yellow center with white petals surrounding it. In pity, the gods had changed Narcissus into a lovely flower bending its head over the water.
In the Netherlands to this day, the narcissus is a flower associated with funerals.
Read Bullfinch's Mythology "Echo & Narcissus."
I have a treat for you: an updated version of this 20-year-old site.