Juno punishes the loquacity of Echo, which frequently prevented her from discovering the intrigues of her husband, by restricting her tongue to the mere repetitions of sound—The nymph, after this, falls in love with Narcissus; which, not being returned, she pines away, and is changed into a stone, which still retains the power of utterance.
Famed far and near for knowing things to come, From him the inquiring nations sought their doom. The fair Liriope his answers tried, And first the unerring prophet justified. This nymph the god Cephisus had abused, With all his winding waters circumfused, And by the Nereid had a lovely boy, Whom the soft maids ev’n then beheld with joy.
The tender dame, solicitous to know Whether her child should reach old age or no, Consults the sage Tiresias; who replies, “If e’er he knows himself he surely dies.” Long lived the dubious mother in suspense, Till time unriddled all the prophet’s sense.