_Greek_
Down in the heart of the woods there was a clear spring with water like
silver. No shepherds ever brought their flocks there to drink, no lions
nor other wild beasts came in the night time. No leaves nor branches
fell into it, but the green grass grew around it all the year, and the
rocks kept it from the sun.
One day a boy hunter found it, and, being thirsty, he stooped down to
drink. As he bent he saw, for the first time in his life, his own fair
face, and did not know who it was.
He thought it must be a water fairy, and he put his lips to the water,
but as soon as their touch disturbed the surface, away went the
shadow-face from out of his sight.
"Nothing has escaped me yet, and here I shall stay till this
curly-haired creature comes out of the water," he said. "See its shining
eyes and smiling mouth!"
He forgot his hunt, he forgot everything but to watch for this water
sprite. When the moon and stars came out, there it was just the same
as in the sunshine, and so he lingered from day to night and from
night to day.
He saw the face in the water grow thinner day by day, but never thought
of himself. At last he was too weak to watch any longer. His face was as
white as the whitest lily, and his yellow hair fell over his hollow
cheeks. With a sigh his breath floated away, his head dropped on the
green grass, and there was no longer any face in the water.
[Illustration: NARCISSUS. From a painting from Pompeii.]
The fairies came out of the woods and would have covered him with
earth, but, looking for him, they found nothing but a lovely flower,
gazing with bended head into the silver spring, just as the boy
hunter had done.
The fairies told the story to a little child, and she told it to her
father and mother. When they found this spring in the heart of the woods
they called the flower growing beside it Narcissus, after the boy hunter
who had perished watching his own face in the silver water.