EKHO

[Art Neuendorffer]

http://www.theoi.com/Ouranos/Ekho.html

 

EKHO was one of the OREIADES and the personification of echoes.
She was depicted as a winged Nymphe with her face shrouded in a veil.

 

“Thou [Pan] lovest the chase and EKHO’s secret voice.” –Orphic Hymn 11 to Pan

 

“Then let EKHO speed to Persephone’s dark-walled dwelling [through the caverns of the earth], to his [deceased] father Kleodemos bearing the glorious tidings.” –Pindar Olympian 14 str2

 

"EKHO, the Nymphe of Kithairon, returns thy words, which resound beneath the dark vaults of the thick foliage and in the midst of the rocks of the forest." -Aristophanes Thesmophoriazusae 970

 

"EKHO, thou who reignest in the inmost recesses of the caves." -Aristophanes Thesmophoriazusae 1020

 

"I am EKHO, the nymph who repeats all she hears." -Aristophanes Thesmophoriazusae 1060

 

”To the right of the sanctuary of Khthonia [Demeter] is a portico, called by the natives the Portico of EKHO. It is such that if a man speaks it reverberates at least three times.” –Pausanias 2.35.10

 

“[Description of an ancient Greek painting:] [Country Nymphai have captured Pan. To teach him a lesson they have bound him with ropes and shorn off his beard] and they say that they will persuade EKHO to scorn him and no longer even to answer his call.” –Philostratus the Elder 2.11

 

"A son of Zeus and the Lamia called Akhilleus was of an irresistable beauty and like others was the object of a competition [with the goddess Aphrodite], he carried it then to the judgement of Pan. Aphrodite was irritated and placed in the heart of Pan the [unrequited] love of EKHO." - Ptolemy Hephaestion Bk6 (as summarized in Photius, Myriobiblon 190)

 

“Cephisius [Narkissos] now had reached his sixteenth year and seemed both man and boy; and many a youth and many a girl desired him, but hard pride ruled in that delicate frame, and never a youth and never a girl could touch his haughty heart. Once as he drove to nets the frightened deer a strange-voiced Nymphe observed him, who must speak if any other speak an cannot speak unless another speak, resounding Echo. Echo was still a body, not a voice, but talkative as now, and with the same power of speaking, only to repeat, as best she could, the last of many words, Saturnia [Hera] had made her so; for many a time when the great goddess might have caught the Nymphae lying with Jove [Zeus] upon the mountainside, Echo discreetly kept her talking till the Nymphae had fled away; and when at last the goddess saw the truth, ‘Your tongue’, she said, ‘with which you tricked me, now its power shall lose, your voice avail but fro the briefest use.’ The event confirmed the threat: when speaking ends, all she can do is double each last word, and echo back again the voice she’s heard. Now when she saw Narcissus wandering in the green byways, Echo’s heart was fired; and stealthily she followed, and the more she followed him, the nearer flamed her love. As when a torch is lit and from the tip the leaping sulphur grasps the offered flame. She longed to come to him with winning words, to urge soft please, but nature now opposed; she might not speak the first but – wheat she might – waited for words her voice could say again. It chanced Narcissus, searching for his friends, called ‘Anyone here?’ and Echo answered ‘Here!’ Amazed he looked all round and, raising his voice called ‘Come this way!’ and Echo called ‘This way!’ He looked behind and, no one coming, shouted ‘Why run away?’ and heard his words again. He stopped, and cheated by the answering voice, called ‘Join me here!’ and she, never more glad to give her answer, answered ‘Join me here!’ And graced her words and ran out from the wood to throw her longing arms around his neck. He bolted, shouting ‘Keep your arms from me! Be off! I’ll die before I yield to you.’ And all she answered was ‘I yield to you’. Shamed and rejected in the woods she hides and has her dwelling in the lonely caves; yet still her love endures and grows on grief, and weeping vigils waste her frame away; her body shrivels, all its moisture dries; only her voice and bones are left; at last only her voice, her bones are turned to stone, so in the woods she hides and hills around, for all to hear, alive, but just a sound. Thus had Narcissus mocked her; others too, Nymphae of Hill and Water and many a man he mocked; till one scorned youth, with raised hands, prayed, ‘So may he love – and never win his love!’ And Rhamnusia [Nemesis] approved the righteous prayer … [and caused Narkissos to fall in love with his own image in a pool of water, and unrequited in his love, to waste away. His body was transformed into a flower at death] No longer lasts the body Echo loved. But she, though angry still and unforgetting, grieved for the hapless boy, and when he moaned ‘Alas’, with answering sob she moaned ‘alas’, and when he beat his hands upon his breast, she gave again the same sad sound of woe. His latest words, gazing and gazing still, he sighed ‘alas! The boy I loved in vain!’ And these the place repeats, and then ‘farewell’, and Echo said ‘farewell’. On the green grass he drooped his weary head, and those bright eyes that loved their master’s beauty closed in death … His sister Naides wailed and sheared their locks in mourning for their brother; the Dryades too wailed and sad Echo wailed in answering woe. And then the brandished torches, bier and pyre were ready – but no body anywhere; and in its stead they found a flower – behold, white petals clustered round a cup of gold!” –Metamorphoses 3.350

 

"The rustic god Pan chanced to be sitting at that moment on the brow of the stream, holding the mountain deity Echo in his arms, and teaching her to repeat after him all kinds of songs. Close by the bank nanny-goats were sporting as they grazed and cropped the river-foliage here and there.” –Apuleius 5.25

 

“The sea rose [during the great deluge] until Nereides became Oreiades on the hills over the woodland. O poor thing! Maid EKHO had to swim with unpractised hands, and she felt a new fear for that old maiden zone – Pan she had escaped, but she might be caught by Poseidon!” –Dionysiaca 6.257

 

”Some old shepherd made melody with his panspipes, and she heard the tune repeated by countryloving EKHO near … oft on some hillside pasture she [Semele pregnant with Dionysos] sang with Pan in maddened voice, and played harmonious EKHO to him. ” –Dionysiaca 8.15

 

“A pretty thing, your Pan piping the Paphian’s [Aphrodite’s] tune! Often he chanted Eros, and never became EKHO’s bridegroom.” –Dionysiaca 15.306

 

“[Nikaia cries out after being seduced in drunken sleep by Dionysos:] ‘Alas for maidenhead, stolen by that vagabond Bakkhos! … But EKHO herself the enemy of the bed – why did not EKHO tell me the whole scheme?” –Dionysiaca 16.356

 

“The host-assembling syrinx mingled its piercing tones [at the start of Dionysos’ battle with the Indians], and Pan’s answering EKHO came from the sea with faint warlike whispers instead of her rocky voice.” –Dionysiaca 39.125

 

“Sing first Daphne, sing the erratic course of EKHO, and the answering note of the goddess who never fails to speak, for these two despised the desire of gods.” –Dionysiaca 42.255

 

“Melodious Pan sat beside herds of goats or sheepcoates playing his tune on the assembled reeds, ... imitating EKHO returned the sounds of his pipes ... prattler as she was [whos] lips which were wont to sound with the pipe of Pan never silent.” –Dionysiaca 45.174

 

"I am like lovelorn Pan, when the girl flees me swift as the wind, and wanders, treading the wilderness with boot more agile than EKHO never see! You are happy, Pan, much more than Bromios, for during your search you have found a physic for love in a mindbewitching voice. EKHO follows your tones and returns them, moving from place to place, and utters a sound of speaking like your voice." -Dionysiaca 48.489

 

"Maiden EKHO did not join in the mountain dance, but shamefast hid herself unapproachable under the foundations of the rock, that she might not behold the wedding of womanmad Dionysos." -Dionysiaca 48.640

 

"Pan ... is in love with EKHO." -Suidas 'Haliplanktos'

 

"IYNX: The daughter of EKHO or some say Peitho (Persuasion)." -Suidas 'IYNX'

 

Sources:

 

The Orphic Hymns - Greek Hymns C? BC
Pindar, Odes - Greek Lyric C5th BC
Aristophanes, Thesmophoriazusae - Greek Comedy C5th BC
Pausanias, Guide to Greece - Greek Geography C2nd AD
Philostratus the Elder, Imagines – Greek Art History C3rd AD
Ptolemy Hephaestion, New History -Greek Scholar C1st-2nd AD
Ovid, Metamorphoses - Latin Epic C1st BC - C1st AD
Apuleius, The Golden Ass – Latin Epic C2nd AD
Nonnos, Dionysiaca - Greek Epic C5th AD
Photius, Myriobiblon -Byzantine Greek Scholar C9th AD
Suidas - Byzantine Greek Lexicography C10th AD

 

http://www.theoi.com/Kronos/Iynx.html

 

IYNX was the goddess-NYMPHE of a magical love-charm known as the IYNX - a spinning wheel to which a wryneck bird was attached.

 

IYNX used her enchantments to make Zeus fall in love with her (or the Naiad Io). Hera was furious and transformed her into a wryneck bird.

 

The English word "JINX' is derived from her name.

 

Parents

 

(1) EKHO or PEITHO (Suidas 'IYNX')
(2) PAN & EKHO (Other References)

 

"IYNX: The daughter of EKHO or Peitho (Persuasion), also Aphrodite, conquerer in the games: bewitching Zeus with drugs she was turned to stone for such things by Hera. And she was called kinaidion by some. There is also a little instrument which is called IYNX, which enchantresses are accustomed to turn about as they cast charms on their beloveds. It is also a bird, which is believed to have the same power. Wherefore they bind [them] on wheels." -Suidas 'IYNX'

 

"IYNX: That which attracts the spirit to desire and love ... It is a bird suited to the evils of love charms, say that it was the daughter of EKHO, some [say] of Peitho. 'Kleopatra thought that by those same charms by which [she had overpowered] Caesar and Antony she would also overpower Augustus as the third." -Suidas 'IYNX'