Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today’s video, we’re discussing Narcissus.
Narcissus' mother consulted a seer, asking if her son would be long lived. The seer replied
that he would be, but only if he never came to know himself. For many years these words
seemed like the cryptic ramblings of a charlatan, but unfortunately, in the end, they proved
true. Knowing himself would truly claim Narcissus’ life.
When Narcissus reached his 16th year, he had already become incredibly handsome, and he
was lusted after by many; but no one was able to touch his heart. He rejected everyone who
mustered the nerve to make an advance.
One day, he caught the eye of a nymph with an odd quirk: she could only repeat what others
had said, unable to speak until others had spoken. Her name was Echo, and she first spied
Narcissus while he was walking in the woods. Love immediately blazed in her heart, and
lust instantly stirred in her loins. A deep, desperate desire suffused her, but she was
apprehensive, unsure of how to approach the youth as she could but parrot what others
had said, devoid of the ability to produce any original speech of her own.
Here is a passage from Ovid’s Metamorphoses that describes her timid advance while Narcissus
searched for his friends in the forest:
It chanced Narcissus, searching for his friends, called ‘anyone here?’ and Echo answered
‘Here!’ Amazed, he looked all round and, raising his voice, called ‘Come this way!’
and Echo called ‘This way!’ he looked behind and, no one coming, shouted ‘ Why
run away ?’ and heard his words again. He stopped and, cheated by the answering voice,
called ‘Join me here!’ and she, never more glad to give her answer, answered Join
me here!'' and graced her words and ran out from the wood to throw her longing arms around
his neck. He bolted, shouting ‘Keep your arms from me! Be off! I’d die before I yield
to you.’ And all she answered was ‘I yield to you’.
And so Echo was spurned, just as everyone else who had lusted after Narcissus had been
spurned. No one could win the youth’s heart, for there wasn’t a one who could capture
the youth’s affection. Echo’s shame and dejection kept her in the woods alone, forlorn.
She slowly wasted away, diminishing, until nothing was left but that sad voice that called
back from mountains and caves.
Countless others felt the cold contempt of Narcissus, too - boys, girls, and other nymphs
of all sorts. However, there would be a time when the bill for Narcissus’ arrogance would
come due. One who was scorned cried “so may he love--and never win his love!” The
goddess Nemesis heard this prayer and saw that it came true, sealing Narcissus’ fate.
Narcissus came upon a secret pool, one never touched by any, not even the most wayward
wanderer. The water was perfectly placid, so still as to be a liquid mirror. He bent
down to take a drink, which was when he became ensnared, his own reflection keeping him in
place better than prison bars or steel chains.
Here’s a passage from Ovid’s Metamorphoses that describes him falling in love with his
own reflection:
Spellbound he saw himself, and motionless lay like a marble statue staring down. He
gazes at his eyes, twin constellation, his hair worthy of Bacchus or Apollo, his face
so fine, his ivory neck, his cheeks smooth, and the snowy pallor and the blush; all he
admires that all admire in him, himself he longs for...how often in vain he kissed the
cheating pool and in the water sank his arms to clasp...no thought of food or rest draws
him away...staring endlessly, his eyes his own undoing”
At first Narcissus didn’t understand his own tragedy. He thought himself and the reflection
before him to be two different people, but as the truth dawned on him, what he thought
to be an elusive lover became an inescapable curse; for he could never truly love himself
as someone could love another person; all he could do was stare at a reflection, at
a pale imitation: he would never be able to kiss or wrap his arms around the one he loved.
The certainty that he would never really be joined with whom he loved drained the vigor
of life from him, almost as if a mortal wound had been dealt from which his life’s blood
rushed out. And whenever he moaned, it echoed back from the forest around him, and when
at last he said farewell, Echo replied farewell. His eyes closed for the last time, and it
was said that, even after the underworld enveloped him in its dark embrace, Narcissus still gazed
upon himself in the river Styx. All those who desired him were stricken by woe. A pyre
was built, but there was no body to be burned. Where he drew his last breath there was only
a flower, a narcissus.
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