Narcissus (mythology)
Narcissus | |
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Daffodil | |
Parents | Cephissus and Liriope or Selene and Endymion |
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In
The character of Narcissus is the origin of the term
Etymology
The name is of Greek etymology. According to
Family
In some versions, Narcissus was the son of the river god Cephissus and nymph Liriope,[2] while Nonnus instead has him as the son of the lunar goddess Selene and her mortal lover Endymion.[3]
Mythology
Several versions of the myth have survived from ancient sources, one from the Greek traveler and geographer of the second century AD Pausanias and a more popular one by
After being “ravaged” by the river god Cephissus, the nymph Liriope gave birth to Narcissus “beautiful even as a child." As was apparently custom, she consulted the seer Tiresias about the boy’s future, who predicted that the boy would live a long life only if he never “came to know himself”. During his 16th year, after getting lost while hunting with friends, Narcissus came to be followed by a nymph Echo.
Echo, an Oread (mountain nymph), like Tiresias, had a sensory ability altered after an argument between Juno and Jove. Echo had kept Juno “occupied” with gossip while Jove had an affair behind her back. So she took from Echo her agency in speech; Echo was, thereafter, never able to speak unless it was to repeat the last few words of those she heard. Echo had deceived using gossip; she would be condemned to be only that from then on.
Meanwhile, Echo spied Narcissus, separated from his hunting friends, and she become immediately infatuated, following him, waiting for him to speak so her feelings might be heard. Narcissus sensed he was being followed and shouted "Who's there?” Echo repeated "Who's there?” After a few rounds of this, in which Narcissus’ confusion and frustrations mounts, Echo came close enough so that she was revealed, and attempted to embrace him. Horrified, he stepped back and told her to “keep her chains". Echo was heartbroken and she wasted away, losing her body amidst lonely glens, until nothing but her chaste verbal ability remained of her.
Thus, in the same, long, lost journey narrated by Ovid, after spurning Echo and the young man, Narcissus was getting thirsty. He finds a pool of water which Ovid tells us no animal had ever approached. Leaning down to drink, Narcissus sees a reflection. Ovid, inhabiting Narcissus' mindset, describes what he sees as being as beautiful as a marble statue. Narcissus did not realize it was his own reflection and fell deeply in love with it, as if it were someone else; in this way, Tiresias’ prophecy came true in the same instance as did Nemesis’ curse.[4][5] Unable to leave the allure of this image, Narcissus eventually realized that his love could not be reciprocated and he melted away from the fire of passion burning inside him, eventually turning into a gold and white flower.[6][7]
An earlier version ascribed to the poet
Influence on culture
The myth of Narcissus has inspired artists for at least two thousand years, even before the
).Literature
In
She looks at herself instead of looking at you, and so doesn't know you.
During the two or three little outbursts of passion she has allowed herself in your favor, she has, by a great effort of imagination, seen in you the hero of her dreams, and not yourself as you really are.
(Page 401, 1953 Penguin Edition, trans. Margaret R.B. Shaw).
The myth had a decided influence on English Victorian homoerotic culture, via André Gide's study of the myth, Le Traité du Narcisse ('The Treatise of the Narcissus', 1891), and the only novel by Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Author and poet Rainer Maria Rilke visits the character and symbolism of Narcissus in several of his poems.
Seamus Heaney references Narcissus in his poem "Personal Helicon"[12] from his first collection "Death of a Naturalist":
To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring
Is beneath all adult dignity.
In
William Faulkner's character "Narcissa" in Sanctuary, sister of Horace Benbow, was also named after Narcissus. Throughout the novel, she allows the arrogant, pompous pressures of high-class society to overrule the unconditional love that she should have for her brother.
Hermann Hesse's character "Narcissus" in "Narcissus and Goldmund" shares several of mythical Narcissus' traits, although his narcissism is based on his intellect rather than his physical beauty.
A. E. Housman refers to the 'Greek Lad', Narcissus, in his poem "Look not in my Eyes" from A Shropshire Lad set to music by several English composers including George Butterworth. At the end of the poem stands a jonquil, a variety of daffodil, Narcissus jonquilla, which like Narcissus looks sadly down into the water.
Herman Melville references the myth of Narcissus in his novel Moby-Dick, in which Ishmael explains the myth as "the key to it all," referring to the greater theme of finding the essence of Truth through the physical world.
On Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen's A Fada Oriana, the eponymous protagonist is punished with mortality for abandoning her duties in order to stare at herself in the surface of a river.
Naomi Iizuka's play Polaroid Stories, a contemporary rewrite of the Orpheus and Eurydice myth, features Narcissus as a character. In the play he is portrayed as a self obsessed, and drug addicted young man who was raised on the streets. He is alluded to being a member of the LGBT+ community and mentions his sexual endeavours with older men, some ending with the death of these men due to drug overdoses. He is accompanied by the character Echo, whom he continuously spurns.
Film and television
Depictions and retellings
Scottish-Canadian animator Norman McLaren finished his career with a short film named Narcissus, re-telling the Greek legend through ballet.
Narcissus appears in the Disney adaptation of Hercules. In the film, he is portrayed as an Olympian god with purple skin.
In the film Bab'Aziz, directed by Nacer Khemir, a Narcissus like character was portrayed by an ancient prince who sat by a pond for days after days and looked at the reflection of his own soul. He was referred to as 'The prince who contemplated his soul'.
Music
- "Narcissus" is a popular melody from Water Scenes by American composer Ethelbert Nevin.
- In Gilbert and Sullivan's opera Patience, the ldyllic poet Archibald Grosvenor calls himself "a very Narcissus" after gazing at his own reflection.[13]
- Composer Nikolai Tcherepnin wrote his ballet "Narcisse et Echo, Op. 40" in 1911 for Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes and was danced by Nijinski.
- The fifth of Benjamin Britten's Six Metamorphoses after Ovid for solo oboe (1951) is titled "Narcissus", "who fell in love with his own image and became a flower".
- Communion.
- "Narcissus in a Red Dress" by Narcissist"). One line goes He falls in love with his reflection in the glass / He can't resist who's staring back
- In Marilyn Manson's song "Deep Six", the first verse mentions Zeus in conversation with Narcissus.[14]
- Alanis Morissette has a song named "Narcissus" on the album Under Rug Swept.
- Narcissus is the sixth mini album by a K-pop band SF9. It was released on February 20, 2019, with "Enough" serving as the album's title track. The English version of this song was supposed to be titled "Superior" but eventually the original title prevailed. The physical album comes in two versions: Temptation and Emptiness.
- Part four of "Supper's Ready" by Genesis, entitled "How Dare I Be So Beautiful?", describes an encounter with Narcissus in the aftermath of a battle.
- Narcissus by Paris Paloma, an Indie artist, who often uses folk and mythology to inspire her songs.
Visual art
Narcissus has been a subject for many painters such as
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Echo And Narcissus, John William Waterhouse
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Liriope Bringing Narcissus before Tiresias, Giulio Carpioni
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Echo and Narcissus, Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée
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Narcissus, follower of Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio
Sculptors such as Paul Dubois, John Gibson, Henri-Léon Gréber, Benvenuto Cellini and Hubert Netzer have sculpted Narcissus.[15]
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Narcisse, Paul Dubois
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Narcissus, John Gibson
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Narziss, Hubert Netzer
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Narcissus, possibly Valerio Cioli
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Narcisse, Henri-Léon Gréber
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Narcisse, Benvenuto Cellini
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Narcisse,Gabriel Grupello and Albert Desenfans
See also
References
- ^ R. S. P. Beekes, Etymological Dictionary of Greek, Brill, 2009, p. 997.
- ^ "The myth of Narcissus". 2 August 2009.
- ^ Nonnus, Dionysiaca 48.581 ff.
- ^
Vinge, Louise (1967). "The Narcissus Myth in Western Literature up until the Early 19th Century". litteraturbanken.se. Gleerups.
Narcissus is in danger when he sees the image but not, because of that, lost. He is lost when he recognizes himself in the image. It is not until then that death becomes the only possible solution. Narcissus dies when he loses the illusion but cannot escape from the feeling that it has aroused; he dies when there is no hope left that the passion can be satisfied.
- ^ Vinge, Louise (1967). "The Narcissus Myth in Western Literature up until the Early 19th Century". litteraturbanken.se. Gleerups.
Finally Narcissus realizes that he has come across an insoluble problem and gives it a concise formulation : [Ovid writes] "Quod cupio, mecum est: inopem me copia fecit." [Translation: "What I desire is with me: I was destitute and made abundant.] At this point [continues Vinge] Schickel makes an important comment: "Er durchschaut wen er im Wasser vor sich hat; weder liebt er sein Spiegelbild, wie ein Leser dem andern nachirrt, noch treibt er 'Narzissmus,' wie man seit Freud missversteht." [Translation: "He sees through who he has in front of him in the water; he neither loves his reflection, like one reader follows another, nor does he practice 'narcissism', as has been misunderstood since Freud"]49.
- ^ a b "The myth of Narcissus".
- ^ John Tzetzes. Chiliades, 1.9 line 235–238
- ^ David Keys, "Ancient manuscript sheds new light on an enduring myth", BBC History Magazine, Vol. 5 No. 5 (May 2004), p. 9 (accessed 30 April 2010);
- ^ Keys, David (1 May 2004). "The ugly end of Narcissus". Poxy: Oxyrhynchus Online. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
- ^ a b "ToposText". topostext.org. Archived from the original on 22 March 2019. Retrieved 15 November 2019.
- ISBN 978-0415064644.
- ^ Cf. Ibiblio, Internet Poetry Archive: Text of the Poem Personal Helicon
- ISBN 978-0-713-99860-3.
- ^ "Marilyn Manson – Deep Six Lyrics".
- ^ "Paul Dubois, Narcisse, Orsay". Archived from the original on 1 May 2018. Retrieved 23 May 2016.
Modern sources
- Graves, Robert (1968). The Greek Myths. London: Cassell.
- Gantz, Timothy (1993). Early Greek Myth. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
- Kerenyi, Karl (1959). The Heroes of the Greeks. New York/London: Thames and Hudson.
- Vinge, Louise (1967). The Narcissus Theme in Western Literature up to the Early 19th Century.
- ISBN 9780971468603. On-line version
- Alexander, Mark (2012). Narcissus. On-line version
External links
- The Warburg Institute Iconographic Database (images of Narcissus)
- Media related to Narcissus (mythology) at Wikimedia Commons
- Papyrology UK