Verbal Imagery in the Story of
Echo and Narcissus
John Jacobs
ergo ubi Narcissum per devia rura vagantem
vidit et incaluit, sequitur vestigia furtim,
quoque magis sequitur, flamma propriore calescit,
non aliter, quam cum summis circumlita taedis
admotas rapiunt vivacia sulphura flammas. (III.370-374)[1]
Therefore, when she saw Narcissus wandering all through the secluded forest and she grew warm with love, she secretly followed his footsteps, and she followed even closer, and she grew warm with an even closer flame of love, not otherwise as when living sulfurs anointed with pitch snatch flickering flames.[2]
ultima vox solitam fuit haec spectantis
in undam:
'heu frustra dilecte puer!', totidemque remisit
verba locus, dictoque vale 'vale' inquit et Echo. (III.499-501)
This was the final utterance of him peering into the solitary wave: ÔAlas, boy beloved in vain!Õ, and the place answered his words just the same, and even Echo says "Farewell" to him having said "Farewell".
In the story of Echo and Narcissus found in the Metamorphoses III.339-510, Ovid creates an intricate verbal fabric that emphasizes the pathos of the plight of both Echo and Narcissus by means of a tricolon crescens: the sense of recognition by the senses, the sense of desire by the senses, and the acute sense of the desire to touch (denied). He establishes the opposition of the first two members of this triad to the last member in lines 353 (multi illum iuvenes, multae cupiere puellae) and 355 (nulli illum iuvenes, nullae tetigere puellae).
Ovid evokes the importance of auditory and visual imagery at all major points in the passage. First, a fatidicus vates (348) says that Narcissus will see a long life (visurus (347)) only if he never knows himself. However, this prophet speaks in vain (vana diu visa est vox auguris (349)). Echo first appears as the vocalis nymphe (357) and resonabilis Echo (358), gazing intently (adspicit (356)) upon Narcissus. Later, Narcissus himself keeps gazing (spectat (420-424)) at his beautiful features reflected in the pond. In addition, Ovid strikes a note of pathos in the verbal echoes adspicere (479), adspexit (486), and spectabat (505). The tension between auditory and visual imagery (and foreshadowing of the tension between a sense desired and a sense denied) heightens the effect of lines 397-401. The device of the imago or forma (imagine vocis (385), visaeÉimagine formae (416), imaginis umbra (434), and mendacemÉformam (439), forma (455), formam (503)) unifies the auditory and visual imagery. Finally, Ovid bridges the sense of recognition and the sense of desire through the use of stupet because of a sound (the voice of Narcissus) (381) and adstupet because of a sight (the face of Narcissus) (418).
Ovid describes the transition from recognition to desire in two couplets, one describing EchoÕs feelings for Narcissus, the other describing NarcissusÕs feelings for his reflection:
vidit et incaluit, sequitur vestigia furtim,
quoque magis sequitur, flamma propriore calescit. (371-372)
se cupit imprudens et, qui probat, ipse probatur,
dumque petit, petitur pariterque accendit et ardet. (425-426)
He unwisely desires himself, and he who commends is himself commended, and while he sought he was being sought, and equally he is set on fire and burns with love.
He establishes a thematic framework for the opposition of the sense of touch desired and the sense of touch denied through the use of extended verbal imagery (tetigere (355), protegit (394), contigerant (409), tangere (478), and turbarat (410), turbavit (475)). As before, two couplets, one from each major part of the story, illustrate the acute sense of the desire to touch denied:
ibat, ut iniceret sperato brachia collo.
ille fugit fugiensque Ômanus conplexibus aufer!Õ (389-390)
She was approaching, so that she could throw her arms around his desired neck. He flees and says in his flight, ÔTake away those hands from my embrace!Õ
in mediis quotiens visum captantia collum
bracchia mersit aquis nec se deprendit [double meaning] in illis! (428-429)
How many times did he plunge his arms deep into the water to lay hold of the beautiful neck, nor did he grasp [double meaning] himself in those waters!
Later, Narcissus even blurts out, Òcupit ipse teneri!Ó (450). In exasperation, Narcissus finally perceives the truth of his plight, and resigns himself to his fate:
iste ego sum! sensi [double meaning]; nec me mea fallit imago:
uror amore mei, flammas moveoque feroque. (463-464)
I am he! I sensed it
[double meaning], nor does my own image deceive me:
I burn with a love of myself, and I move and I bear those flames.
Thus Ovid establishes an emotional tricolon crescens of the sense of recognition by the senses, the sense of desire by the senses, and the sense of the desire to touch (denied). The denial of the desire to touch leaves Echo just that, a mere voice (vox manet (399)), while the satisfaction of the desire to touch completely destroys Narcissus (nusquam corpus erat (509)), establishing a nice contrast between untouched splendor and the desire, stimulated by the auditory and visual senses, to touch what is pure and sacred.
References
Ovidius Naso, Publius. 1977. Metamorphoses. Ed. William S. Anderson. Leipzig: Teubner Verlagsgesellschaft.
View of the Colliseum
from the Basilica Nova, more formally
known as the Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine.
Photograph by George Kaufman. Used by permission.