Echo - two curses...

In the story of Echo I found two life lessons, that would be wise to take into account by everyone.

Echo was a mountain nymph, who could chatter up anyone with her stories and humour; she always liked to have the last word in conversations. She kept even Artemis and Hera entertained and completely absorbed by her stories and her eloquence. It seems like she was unstoppable and unaware of her talent and its power over people. She was eventually punished by Hera, albeit unjustly and unfairly.

But isn't this how things unexplainably usually are?! Aren't we often being "punished" by fate for our best qualities? Hard work, ambition, eloquence, zeal, courage and others, especially if we take them to extreme, if we are not taming them, balancing them. We are punished for flaunting them, for being too good in something, as if it "angers" the gods, spirits, fate ... and just other people.

Since Echo was so good that she always had the last word in a conversation, Hera punished her by saying: "You will always have the last word, but you will never speak first"!

She got the extreme of what she wanted. And taken to the extreme, it became the opposite of actually speaking. It turned only into repeating. So wicked are the ways of gods.

Such was the first cruel curse on poor Echo, but it was not the last...

Find out the second one in the next post!

Narcissus and Echo