Echo and Narcissus Echo and Narcissus Echo and Narcissus is a myth from Ovid's "Metamorphoses", a Latin mythological epic from the Augustan Age. The introduction of the myth of the mountain nymph Echo into the story of Narcissus, the beautiful youth who rejected sexuality and falls in love with his own reflection, appears to have been Ovid's invention. Ovid's version influenced the presentation of the myth in later Western art and literature. The myth of the goddess is told in Book III of the "Metamorphoses", and tells the story of a "talkative nymph" whom the goddess Venus admires for her magnificent voice and
Narcissus (mythology) all the pain he provoked. Narcissus walked by a pool of water and decided to drink some. He saw his reflection, became entranced by it, and killed himself because he could not have his object of desire. A century later the travel writer Pausanias recorded a novel variant of the story, in which Narcissus falls in love with his twin sister rather than himself ("Guide to Greece", 9.31.7). In all versions, his body disappears and all that is left is a narcissus flower. In 1898 Havelock Ellis, an English sexologist, used the term "narcissus-like" in reference to excessive masturbation, whereby