POE rS NA RCISS US. 



i 



a fatal mistake. A thousand nymphs fancied the handsome 

 Narcissus, and they learnt to know the pains of unrequited 

 love. Echo was treated with coldness by the ungrateful 

 youth. She was then beautiful ; but grief and reproach 

 effaced her beauty ; her substance wasted until she resembled 

 a skeleton ; the gods pitied her, and changed her bones into 

 stones, but they could not heal her mind, which still bewailed 

 her lot in the remote places whither she followed so often the 

 cruel-hearted shepherd who could not return her love. 



Wearied b}' the chace and the intense heat which scorched 

 the earth, the handsome Narcissus lay down to rest on the 

 thick grass, at the brink of a fountain whose waters had 

 never been disturbed. The shepherd, attracted by its coolness, 

 wished to quench his thirst ; he bent over the pure crystal 

 of the treacherous wave ; there he saw himself, whom he 

 at once admired, and, struck with his own image, and gazing 

 intently upon the reflection, he lost the power of motion, 

 and was like a statue fixed upon the bank. Love, who 

 avenges himself on the rebellious heart, adorned the reflected 

 image with all the attractions he can bestow; then he mocked 

 the mad mistake, abandoning his victim to the delirium which 

 consumed him. Echo alone saw his pain, his tears; she al(^ne 

 heard his sighs and the insensate vows addressed to himself 

 Still, full of tenderness, the nymph answered his complaints, 

 and repeated his last adieus, which were not for her ; even 

 while expiring, the unhappy youth continued searching for, 

 at the bottom of the water, the illusion which had enchanted 

 him ; and descending into the shades he sought it again in 

 the dark waters of the Styx, from whose banks nothing could 





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