Mythos: The Greek Myths Reimagined (Stephen Fry's Great Mythology, #1)

by Stephen Fry

Echo ran and ran up the hillside, sobbing with grief and desolation. She hid in a cave high above the river by whose banks the lovely Narcissus lay. Inside her head Echo framed the words of a prayer to her favorite goddess, Aphrodite. In mute despair she begged to be relieved of the pain of love and the intolerable burden of her cursed existence. Aphrodite answered the nymph’s prayers as best she could. She freed the nymph of her body and most of her physical self. She did not have the power to lift Hera’s curse, so the voice remained. The voice that had got Echo into all that trouble in the first place, the voice that was doomed to repeat and repeat. Nothing more was left of the once beautiful nymph, just the answering voice. You can hear Echo still, returning your last few words when you call out near caves, canyons, cliffs, hills, streets, squares, temples, monuments, ruins, and empty rooms.