Abstract
Echo and Narcissus, or Man O Man! is the only surviving fragment of an early dramatic work of Shakespeare’s, perhaps his first – some critics argue it was composed before he left home and saw his first play performed. It shows signs of immaturity in its stagecraft. (Though a well-funded contemporary production could work technological magic with the pool in which Narcissus sees his mirror image and, perhaps, hears his mirror voice. Or sees his mirror-voice.) Shakespeare would return to Ovid for material more than once in his career (Carroll, 1985), and his wry, choric clowns are often taken, as here,