Narcissus Jones
is remembered for having fallen in love with himself.
A poet of uncertain parentage, Narcissus, was loved
by Apollo and is counted among the most handsome of men,
was, according to some, the son of the river god Cephisus and the nymph
Liriope, or according to others, the son of Endymion and Selene.
The beauty of Narcissus was compared to that of Adonis, whom Aphrodite
loved,
or to that of Endymion, whom Selene loved, or to that of Ganymedes, whom
Zeus loved, or to that of Hyacinthus, whom Apollo loved, or to that of
Hylas, whom Heracles loved, or to that of Hermaphroditus, whom Salmacis
loved,
or to that of Chrysippus , whom Laius loved.
When Narcissus was born the seer Tiresias was asked
whether this child would live a long life, the seer replied:
"If he never knows himself"
When the nymph Echo fell in love with him and her love was not returned,
she disappeared from woods and mountains, and faded away. An indifferent
fellow
to the other nymphs and youths who were mocked by Narcissus,
until one of them prayed to heaven:
"So may he himself love, and not gain the thing he loves"
When Narcissus, who was as beautiful as Dionysus or Apollo,
discovered his image in a pool, he fell in love with himself,
and not being able to find consolation, he died of sorrow by the same pool.
It is said that Narcissus still keeps gazing on his image in the waters
of the river Styx in the Underworld.
Upon prepared his funeral pyre, the grieving poets could not find his body,
in its place they found the flower that today bears his name.
Some reject that story and say, Narcissus, looking into the water,
did not understand that he saw his own reflection, and fell in love
with himself, dying of love at the spring.
For it is stupid to imagine, they argue, that a man old enough to fall in
love
was unable to distinguish a man from a man's reflection.
Instead they assert that Narcissus had a twin sister,
and that both were exactly alike in appearance.
He then fell in love with his sister, and when she died
he used to go to the spring, knowing that it was his reflection
that he saw, but finding some relief for his love because the reflection
reminded him of his sister. What a treacherous little flower.
And concerning the flower in which they say that the young man turned into,
it already existed at the time when Hades abducted Persephone, and became
"a snare for the bloom-like girl". For it was she, attracted by the sweet
scent
of the narcissus, gathered flowers over a meadow, that the earth opened
and Hades sprang out upon her with his immortal horses, and took her
to be the queen of the Underworld.
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