Echo and Narcissus

So the story goes that Zeus was being his philandering self with the nymphs. Again. He put a “sexy young water nymph” (the internet’s words, not mine) in charge of being his guard. Smart. Hera came looking for Zeus because she is the goddess of marriage and him being with other nymphs means that she struggled. Anyways, Echo was just doing her job by distracting Hera with the waterfall of words coming out of her mouth, but Hera got mad (which was not unusual) and cursed Echo to only be able to repeat words that she hears. This becomes a slight problem for Echo when the love of her life came into her neck of the woods and they started to chat. Narcissus was a little put off by her repeating everything he said to her, but not too put off because the love of his life was him. So he wandered along and happened on his refelction where he was like, “Oh. My. Gods. That person in the pond water is sexy.” So sexy, it turns out that Narcissus never left and starved to death staring at his reflection. In his place a flower grew that the Greeks named after him, today we call it a daffodil. Echo pined for him and watched him fall in love with himself and even watched him die. She died then too, wasting away from hunger into dust that became stone. Only her voice remained stuck in the mountains, cursed forever to repeat what it hears. An echo. Ha.

here is a picture of both of them. if you look closely you can see echo creeping in the background.

I know some narcissistic people and some altruistic people. I like to be friends with the altruistic people, but the narcissistic people are funny so I like them too. One of the most narcissistic people I can think of was my Chemistry teacher in Germany. He was not funny. His name was Herr Mannteil and we did not get a long. Possibly because of his inflated sense of self worth but possibly because he would throw chalk at you if you did not understand what he was talking about. Something that occurred often. Also he always kept the windows open. Even in winter. When it snowed. There are more and better reasons, but I won’t bore you with my venting anymore. Except for I had to sit next to the window and I get cold. There. I’m done.