perception • research • creative
ESSAY – NARCISSUS & ECHO MYTH
Well known from a version by Roman poet Ovid, the popular myth of Narcissus and Echo has inspired artists throughout centuries, and was later implicated in the naming of the psychological type, Narcissism. However, this myth and its symbolism have more ancient roots than even Rome; for example, the flower narcissus appears in the stories of Persephone, associated with the Eleusinian mysteries (Addey, 2020).
Born of the river god Cephisus and the nymph Liriope, Narcissus is beautiful from birth. Cautious to protect him, his mother seeks advice from the prophet Tiresias and asks if her son will live a long life. The old seer replies “Yes, so long as he never comes to know himself”. As the youth grows, many a heart falls for him but none interest Narcissus who is hardened and cold in his rejection. One day whilst out hunting, Echo the nymph catches a glimpse of him: ‘the closer she followed, the flames of her passion grew nearer and nearer, as sulphur smeared on the tip of a pine-torch quickly catches fire when another flame is brought in close proximity…; yet with her strange and babbling speech which cannot initiate words of its own, Echo is unable to address him. Until Narcissus becomes separated from his companions and calls out ‘Is anyone there?’ ‘One there?’ Echo replies… ‘Come here!’ ‘Come here!’ throws back Echo… ‘We must come together’ and with the most joyous cry ever uttered ‘We must come together’, sang Echo… With arms outstretched towards her beloved she runs, yet Narcissus shrieks ‘I would rather die before you enjoy my body’… ‘enjoy my body’, wept Echo… (Ovid, Metamorphoses).
Ashamed and grief-stricken, Echo withdraws into a cave until her body withers, her bones turn to stone and only her voice remains. Another youth, once injured by unrequited love, makes a prayer which is heeded, that Narcissus too should never obtain the object of his desire. One day after hunting, Narcissus spies a silvery, virgin pool untouched by human hand. Sitting down by its edge, he drinks, but as Echo and Narcissus by John William Waterhouse. Source: Wikimedia 21 one thirst is satiated another one grew. In front of him he sees the most beautiful youth and unaware of his own reflection, Narcissus becomes completely enraptured and frozen like ‘Parian marble’. There he stays, unable to avert his gaze until all that remains are the fragrant flowers that now bear his name, Narcissi… It is this flower that Persephone picks in the Eleusinan mysteries and through this flower that the Earth opens up and the chariot of Hades flies out to capture her (Addey, 2000). The psychological caution of selfobsession is plain: ensnared and trapped by his own image, had lived in unreality about who he was. Echo too, punished by Juno for her former loquacious speech, now cannot initiate words. Both are in a stagnant state which seems complementary (Greene and Sharman-Burke, 2000).
However, there are perhaps more subtle, spiritual keys suggested, the mystery of the soul, its beautiful fragrance and the symbol of water. For the philosopher Porphyry, nymphs as related to water and precipitation belonged to the order of divine beings that assisted the soul in its descent into matter. The pool is where Narcissus is caught and the soul seeing its own beauty becomes trapped in matter (Addey, 2000). The pool acts as the conduit of the image and to behold images is quintessential for human experience on all levels. Yet it seems to matter greatly what internal state we bring to this activity of beholding. That we look at ourselves and at life is inevitable but the way we look is significant. Too much selfimportance and we are caught as marble like Narcissus, but too little and we are impotent, like Echo.
To behold some beauty of life or awareness of our soulful essence is cruelly intermittent and living with this condition is certainly strewn with strife and failure. For renaissance polymath Leon Battista Alberti “The inventor of painting… was Narcissus … What is painting but the act of embracing by means of art the surface of the pool?” (Atwood, 2024). We can think of painting but also of art more broadly and the art of living. Perhaps one key is to move from attaching to the ‘want’ of what we behold towards ‘participation’ and ‘action’, like the artist making so-called dreams reality… Being aware of our shortcomings can enable us to channel what we behold and what we dream of more effectively into conscious action. To look at ourselves, at life and each other in fullness without fixation, helps the transformative process of living to occur. To embrace the inevitability of life’s trials that cannot be avoided, without becoming frozen or stagnant, is one key which will perhaps help our fragrant souls to flower.
Siobhan Cait Farrar
London 2024.
Reading List
Attwood. Mary. (2024) The Myth of Narcissus. Lecture Video.
Ovid. Metamorphoses. (2004). London: Penguin Books.
Addey. Tim. (2000). The Seven Myths of the Soul. Somerset: Prometheus Trust.
Greene. Liz. and Sharman-Burke. Juliet. (2000). The Mythic Journey. The Meaning of Myth As
A Guide For Life. New York: Simon & Schuster.