Echo was a nymph of the forest, gifted with a voice as sweet as spring water but cursed by Hera to speak only the last words spoken to her. She wandered the shaded glades, joyful yet trapped in silence, unable to tell her own story.

One day, she saw Narcissus, a youth of such beauty that the gods themselves were struck dumb. Handsome and proud, he wandered the woods, indifferent to all who admired him. Echo, captivated by his radiance, followed him, longing to speak her love.

But cursed, she could only repeat his words. When she tried to confess, all she could say was what he had just spoken — and he, cruel in his pride, spurned her.

"Speak your love, but hear only me,
Words like shadows lost in the tree.
Echoes fall where silence grew,
Longing lost, forever true."

Narcissus, too proud to love another, caught sight one day of his own reflection in a clear pool. Captivated by the image, he fell deeply in love — but the face he adored was his own, unreachable and forever distant. He wasted away by the water’s edge, until all that remained was a flower with petals white as his fading skin and crimson at the heart.

Echo, heartbroken, faded too — her voice lingering only as a whisper in the hills and valleys, repeating the words of those who pass.

"See yourself in water deep,
Love the face you cannot keep.
Fading voice and fading light,
Lost in day and lost in night."

Thus the tale of Echo and Narcissus reminds us: love unreturned is a prison, and pride can bind even the fairest heart.