Echo and Narcissus: a book club kit

Where it comes from. Ovid, a poet in Rome, wrote down this Greek myth about 2,000 years ago, and every echo in the hills still answers it.

In short (for the leader; it gives the ending away). Echo is a nymph whom the goddess Hera punishes so that she can only repeat other people's last words. She falls in love with Narcissus, a proud young hunter who turns her away. Narcissus later falls in love with his own reflection in a pool, cannot leave it, and becomes the narcissus flower.

The lesson, in one line. Caring only about yourself can leave you lonely.

Reading plan, by the story's parts. Meeting 1: Part One, “The Nymph Who Talked” and Part Two, “The Proud Hunter” and Part Three, “Only a Voice”, pages 1–8 (about 5 minutes aloud); Meeting 2: Part Four, “The Still Pool” and Part Five, “The Flower by the Water”, pages 9–15 (about 4 minutes aloud). Each stop's own questions, which never give away what comes next: Echo and Narcissus by chapter.

Questions to talk about

1. What is the moral of Echo and Narcissus?
   The story's answer: Caring only about yourself can leave you lonely. Narcissus turned away everyone who cared about him, and in the end he could love only his own reflection.
2. Why could Echo only repeat words?
   The story's answer: In the myth, Echo kept the goddess Hera talking so that other nymphs could slip away. Hera punished her so that she could never speak first, only repeat the last words she heard.
3. What happened to Narcissus?
   The story's answer: He fell in love with his own reflection in a clear pool and would not leave it. He grew thin and pale, and in the place where he had knelt, a new flower grew, the narcissus.
4. Who told the myth of Echo and Narcissus?
   The story's answer: It is an ancient Greek myth. The Roman poet Ovid wrote the most famous version in his long poem Metamorphoses, finished around the year 8.
5. What does this myth explain, or try to explain?
   Listen for: Many myths explain how something came to be: a season, an animal, a name.
6. Was the main character right or wrong? Was the ending fair?
   Listen for: Myths are often hard on people; let the group disagree.

Did you know?

• The Roman poet Ovid told this Greek myth in his Metamorphoses about 2,000 years ago.
• The word echo, for a sound that bounces back, comes from the nymph's name.
• The narcissus is a real spring flower, a cousin of the daffodil, that often grows near water.

Activity: Make a new myth

Each reader explains something they see every day (why cats purr, why puddles dry up) with a short made-up myth of their own, told round the circle in three sentences.