Week 3: Reading Notes B - Echo

For Part B of the this week's reading I decided to focus on the stories about Echo. In particular, the story titled, "How Juno altered Echo's speech".

How Juno altered Echo's speech 

As per usual, Jupiter was cheating on Juno and Juno was likely going to catch him if it weren't for Echo's long conversations that allowed the nymphs to flee. This angered Juno and she said, 'I shall give you less power over that tongue by which I have been deluded, and the briefest ability to speak.’ She did not hold back on this. Subsequently, Echo could only speak what had last been said. She could only echo back a few words at a time. This made it difficult for Echo to be seductive and deceiving. I like this part of the story because it gives us an origin story of "echoes". Echo is eventually rejected by Narcissus whom she loves. She then proceeded to retreat to the caves and eventually as legend has it was turned into stone. I guess I just appreciate this story, because I've always enjoyed a good echo. It's kinda cool (especially as a young kid) to yell in a cave and hear your own voice repeated. My favorite thing to yell was, "Echo....echo...echo...". 

(Amazon Echo: Image by Piyush Maru)

Bibliography. "How Juno altered Echo's speech" from Ovid's Metamorphoses translated by Tony Kline (2000). Web Source.