Echo and Narcissus (Waterhouse painting) mythology. In Ovid's version of the myth, Narcissus was the son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope. His parents were told that he would live to an old age if he did not look at himself. He rejected all the nymphs and women who fell in love with him. One of these was the nymph Echo, who was so upset by her rejection that she withdrew from life and wasted away until all that was left was a whisper. Her prayers were heard by the goddess Nemesis who caused Narcissus to fall in love with his own
Greek love Greek conception of love in 1818 during his first summer in Italy, concurrently with his translation of Plato's "Symposium". Shelley was the first major English writer to treat Platonic homosexuality, although neither work was published during his lifetime. His translation of the "Symposium" did not appear in complete form until 1910. Shelley asserts that Greek love arose from the circumstances of Greek households, in which women were not educated and not treated as equals, and thus not suitable objects of ideal love. Although Shelley recognizes the homosexual nature of the love relationships between males in ancient Greece, he argues that