O who will show me those delights on high?
Echo. I.
Thou Echo, thou art mortal, all men know.
Echo. No.
—George Herbert (1593-1633), "Heaven"
Someone asks a question. A voice answers — but not in its own words, just repeating the last few words of the first person's question.
Examples:
Film
Literature
- Echos from the Boogiepop novel can only communicate like this.
- In the Serendipity Books series of children's picture books, there's a story of a short-tempered baby elephant who mistakes echoes for a person and gets in a pointless argument with them.
Music
- The aria "Treues Echo dieser Orten" from J.S. Bach's secular cantata Hercules auf dem Scheidewege. Much of the music of this cantata, including this aria, was adapted into the fourth part of the Christmas Oratorio.
Mythology
Theatre