Echo and Narcissus 1903
Oil on canvas, 43 x 74 in
Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool
"Sweet Echo, sweetest nymph, that liv'st unseen Within thy airy shell By slow Meander's margent green, And in the violet-embroidered vale Where the lovelorn nightingale Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well: Canst thou not tell me of a gentle pair That likest thy Narcissus are?" John Milton (1608-1674), 'Comus'
Punished by a goddess for her constant chatter, Echo was confined to repeating the words of others. Enamoured of Narcissus, the son of the river god Cephisus and the nymph Liriope, she tried to win his love using fragments of his own speech but he spurned her attentions. Passing by a stream, the beautiful youth caught a glimpse of his reflection is a stream and became transfixed by the lovely image. Believing it to be the form of a nymph, he vainly courted the watery mirage and wasted away through unrequited love. He was transformed into the flower that bears his name and Echo pined away until nothing but her voice remained.
I have dreamed of you so much that you are no longer real.
Is there still time to reach your breathing body,
To kiss your mouth and make your dear voice come alive again?
I have dreamed of you so much that my arms,
Grown used to being crossed on my chest as I hugged your shadow,
Would perhaps not bend to the shape of your body.
For faced with the real form of what has haunted me and governed me for so many days and years,
I would surely become a shadow.
O scales of feeling.
I have dreamed of you so much that surely there is no time for me to wake up.
I sleep on my feet prey to all the forms of life and love,
and you,
the only one who counts for me today,
I can no more touch your face and lips than touch the lips and face of some passerby.
I have dreamed of you so much,
Have walked so much,
talked so much,
slept so much with your phantom,
that perhaps the only thing left for me is to become a phantom among phantoms,
A shadow a hundred times more shadow than the shadow moves and goes on moving,
brightly,
Over the sundial of your life…
--Robert Desnos 1900-1945
Created By PSONE for Lori_Blue 2000
