Echo
Echo (ring, resound) In Greek mythology, a nymph of Mount Helicon; daughter of Gaea.
Echo was deprived of speech by the ever-jealous Hera because she was a confidant of Zeus’s many love affairs. She wasted away when Narcissus, whom she loved, did not return her love. Ovid’s Metamorphoses (book 3) tells the tale. Juliet in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (2.2) says:
Else would I tear the cave where Echo lies, And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine, With repetition of my Romeo’s name. (2.2.163–5)
English poets who have used or referred to the tale of Echo are Chaucer, Spenser, Marlowe, Milton, Shelley, and Keats.
SOURCE:
Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, Third Edition – Written by Anthony S. Mercatante & James R. Dow-Copyright © 2009 by Anthony S. Mercatante