Book 3
that harkened to his fateful prophecies,
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a lovely Nymph, named Liriope, came
with her dear son, who then fifteen, might seem
a man or boy—he who was born to her
upon the green merge of Cephissus' stream—
that mighty River-God whom she declared
Imploring him to tell her if her son,
unequalled for his beauty, whom she called
Narcissus, might attain a ripe old age.
To which the blind seer answered in these words,
“If he but fail to recognize himself,
a long life he may have, beneath the sun,”—
so, frivolous the prophet's words appeared;
and yet the event, the manner of his death,
the strange delusion of his frenzied love, confirmed it.
Three times five years so were passed.
Another five-years, and the lad might seem
a young man or a boy. And many a youth,
and many a damsel sought to gain his love;
but such his mood and spirit and his pride,
(who never held her tongue when others spoke,
who never spoke till others had begun)
mocking Echo, spied him as he drove,
in his delusive nets, some timid stags.—
for Echo was a Nymph, in olden time,—
and, more than vapid sound,—possessed a form:
and she was then deprived the use of speech,
except to babble and repeat the words,
once spoken, over and over.
her silly tongue, because she often held
that glorious goddess with her endless tales,
till many a hapless Nymph, from Jove's embrace,
had made escape adown a mountain. But
for this, the goddess might have caught them. Thus
the glorious Juno, when she knew her guile;
