FlowersWaterWineNarcissus bloomsA mirror look taken deliberately
Invocation Approach
Tone
Cool reflective
Address
NarcissusBeautiful YouthNarcissus of Thespiae
Relationship
The beauty that is loved before it can be given
Warning
He looks and is taken by the looking and the looking is what costs him
Resonance
Those who cannot look away from their own image
Symbols
The springThe narcissus flowerThe reflectionThe hunting spear
Mythology Summary
Narcissus is a Boeotian hero of Thespiae. In Ovid he is the beautiful son of the river Cephisus and the nymph Liriope, who scorns every lover, is made to fall in love with his own reflection in a spring and dies there, and the narcissus grows where he died (Metamorphoses III.339-510). Pausanias knows the place: the spring of Narcissus at Donacon in Thespian territory, where he says Narcissus looked in and did not understand that he saw himself - and calls the story stupid, since a grown man knows a reflection (9.31.7). Pausanias also records a second, less popular version in which Narcissus loved a twin sister who died (9.31.8).
Modern Practice
Narcissus is worked with for self-regard, for the image mistaken for the person, and for the beauty that has never been given away. The practice is unglamorous: look, then look up, and give the reflection to someone who can answer it.