The Voice of Echo

Diffuse Reflections on a Strange Loneliness

Extenuant vigiles corpus miserabile curae,
adducitque cutem macies et in aera sucus
corporis omnis abit. Vox tantum atque ossa supersunt:
vox manet; ossa ferunt lapidis traxisse figuram.
inde latet silvis nulloque in monte videtur;
omnibus auditur: sonus est, qui vivit in illa.

[Her sleepless cares wear away her suffering body, and emaciate her skin, and her body’s moisture withers all away into the air. Only her voice and bones are left: her voice remains; her bones are said to have assumed the form of stone. Thenceforth she is hidden in the woods and is seen no more on any hill; she is heard by all: it is a sounding forth that has its life in her.]

Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book III, ll. 394-399