Narcissus

Narcissus Narcissus, from whose myth narcissism has been named, was the son of the river god Cephissus and the nymph Liriope. He fell in love with his own image reflected in water, pined away, and was transformed into the flower which bears his name. According to the Roman poet Ovid, the metamorphosis of Narcissus was a punishment for having rejected the nymph Echo, who fell in love with Narcissus but who was unable to speak except by repeating his words. The geographer Pausanias gives another version in which Narcissus fell in love with his twin sister; when she died, he thought he had found her again in his reflection.

Perhaps because of its contribution to debates about the nature of representation and the relationship between what is seen and what is real, the myth has been very popular as a subject in art, both during and since the classical period. About fifty murals depicting Narcissus survive from Pompeii alone. The best-known work from the modern period representing the myth is probably Salvador Dali's Metamorphosis of Narcissus. It is also a significant myth in psychological work. Narcissus' love for his own reflection is the origin of Freud's idea of narcissism as a stage in the development of the ego. Lacan saw primary narcissism as concerned with the creation of awareness of the body as body; he also drew attention to the fragmentation of the body in this myth, with Echo as voice alone, and Narcissus as the gaze. Derrida suggested that Freud was himself Narcissus, the man fascinated by his own image.

Helen King

See also mythology and the body.