Narcissus

Role: youth · First appears: Fable 35

Life events

• Liriope gives birth to Narcissus and names him.(Fable35)
  • With: Liriope
  • “The most beauteous Nymph produced an infant from her teeming womb, which even then might have been beloved, and she called him Narcissus.”
• A prophecy makes Narcissus’s longevity conditional on never recognizing himself.(Fable35)
  • “Being consulted concerning him, whether he was destined to see the distant season of mature old age; the prophet, expounding destiny, said, ‘If he never recognizes himself.’”
• Narcissus rejects Echo’s embrace, leaving her hidden and mortified in the woods.(Fable35 · 📍 woods)
  • With: Echo
  • “He flies; and as he flies, he exclaims, ‘Remove thy hands from thus embracing me; I will die first, before thou shalt have the enjoyment of me.’”
• Rhamnusia assents to a prayer that Narcissus should never enjoy what he loves.(Fable36)
  • With: Rhamnusia
  • “Rhamnusia[74] assented to a prayer so reasonable.”
• Narcissus falls in love with his own reflected image while drinking from the spring.(Fable36)
  • “While he is drinking, being attracted with the reflection of his own form, seen {in the water}, he falls in love with a thing that has no substance;”
• Narcissus wastes away and dies from his consuming love.(Fable36)
  • With: Echo
  • “so he, consumed by love, pined away, and wasted by degrees with a hidden flame.”
• Narcissus’s body disappears, replaced by a yellow flower with white leaves.(Fable36)
  • “The body was nowhere {to be found}. Instead of his body, they found a yellow flower, with white leaves encompassing it in the middle.”

Fable 35

• parent: Liriope (Liriope is identified as the Nymph who produced and named Narcissus.) “The azure Liriope[68] was the first to make essay and experiment of his infallible voice; whom once Cephisus encircled in his winding stream, and offered violence to, {when} enclosed by his waters. The most beauteous Nymph produced an infant from her teeming womb, which even then might have been beloved, and she called him Narcissus.”
• parent: Cephisus “And now, the son of Cephisus had added one to three times five years, and he might seem to be a boy and a young man as well.”
• admirer->admired with Echo “When, therefore, she beheld Narcissus[71] wandering through the pathless forests, and fell in love with him, she stealthily followed his steps; and the more she followed him, with the nearer flame did she burn.”
• with Echo (Narcissus rejects Echo's advances.) “He flies; and as he flies, he exclaims, ‘Remove thy hands from thus embracing me; I will die first, before thou shalt have the enjoyment of me.’ She answers nothing but ‘Have the enjoyment of me.’ {Thus} rejected, she lies hid in the woods, and hides her blushing face with green leaves, and from that time lives in lonely caves; but yet her love remains, and increases from the mortification of her refusal.”
• admirer: Echo “When, therefore, she beheld Narcissus[71] wandering through the pathless forests, and fell in love with him, she stealthily followed his steps; and the more she followed him, with the nearer flame did she burn.”

Fable 36

• admirer: Echo (Echo had been in love with Narcissus.) “nor {even} his body, which formerly Echo had been in love with, now remained.”
• with Rhamnusia (Rhamnusia assented to the prayer for retribution against Narcissus.) “Thus had he deceived her, thus, too, other Nymphs that sprung from the water or the mountains, thus the throng of youths before {them}. Some one, therefore, who had been despised {by him}, lifting up his hands towards heaven, said, ‘Thus, though he should love, let him not enjoy what he loves!’ Rhamnusia[74] assented to a prayer so reasonable.”

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Extracted from the original text of The Metamorphoses of Ovid. Made with Rho MD.