Narcissus: Oppressed or Mentally Ill?

I'm sure most people reading this are familiar with the story of Narcissus and Echo. The general structure is that the handsome Narcissus was adored by many would-be lovers, but he rejected them all. One of these was Echo, a beautiful nymph, who tried to confess her love after seeing Narcissus hunting in the woods. Narcissus rejected her, and after she left, he fell in love with his own reflection. He refused to leave the side of the water, and he eventually withered and died, leaving only the flower that shares his name behind.

In modern culture his name is often synonymous with self-obsession, vanity, and cruelty. But is that how older writers treat him? What about the involvement of Nemesis?

What did Narcissus do wrong precisely?

The First Century: Origins

(Narcissus circa 2nd Century CE. Photo by Wolfgang Sauber.)

As our oldest source containing the story of Narcissus and Echo, Ovid's Metamorphoses holds the story in its sway—all the more due to the poem's historical relevance. Most versions of this myth refer back to this work, so we can understand much by looking at where the work started and how it was translated over time. For now I'll keep my eye on the original Latin text, but I'll explore relevant translations later on.

Narcissus is introduced in Book III of the work as son of the nymph Liriope after the river Cephisus raped her. He grew to become a beautiful youth, and his fateful encounter with Echo took place when he was sixteen years old. As Ovid says, this is the age when "one could seem both a young man and a boy" (poteratque puer iuvenisque videri). But, he goes on to say, "there was so much unyielding pride in that delicate form" (fuit in tenera tam dura superbia forma) that Narcissus refused all suitors, male or female.

The nymph Echo sees him in the woods, but she can't call out, as she has been cursed to only repeat the end of sentences said to her. So she follows him stealthily. However, she's poised for when he speaks, and speak he does. After being separated from his friends, Narcissus realizes he is being followed, and he calls out, "Is anyone there?" (ecquis adest), and Echo happily answers "Someone's here" (adest). He asks her to come out (veni), which she responds, but doesn't approach. Narcissus looks around, not seeing who has been following him, and asks, "How do you succeed in avoiding me?" (quid [...] me fugis). And she repeats the same. Then, "cheated by the successive voice's echo" (alternae deceptus imagine vocis), he calls out again.

Let's take a moment and consider the situation from each person's point of view. Narcissus is aware that someone has been following him, and he's trying to figure out who. This person has neither shown nor identified themselves, and he is trying to figure out what's going on. Echo, on the other hand, is consumed by the fire of overwhelming lust. Although we know this about his stalker, Narcissus doesn't have a specific reason to be thinking about sex, and he calls out the following:

"Huc coeamus!"

Usually, this would mean something like, "Let's meet here!" or "Let's assemble here!" That is, Narcissus is asking the voice to come out into the open and meet him where they can both see each other. Unfortunately, coeamus has also has the euphemistic meaning of "let's have sex". So Echo, hearing what she wants to hear, calls out "Coeamus!" and rushes towards Narcissus without bothering to clarify his intentions ("she prefers her own words" / verbis favet ipsa suis). Narcissus then pushes her off and rejects her, saying, "Remove your hands from this embrace! Let me die before my power is yours!" (manus complexibus aufer! ante [...] emoriar, quam sit tibi copia nostri). Echo then runs off and wastes away from grief at being rejected.

At this point, Nemesis recalls a previous would-be lover who asked that Narcissus "be permitted to love himself, and so not possess his beloved" (sic amet ipse licet, sic non potiatur amato!). Nemesis approves of this "just" (iustis) prayer, and soon Narcissus sees himself in the pool of water and falls in love. He tells the image in the water about his love, and he is delighted by the reciprocation he sees. In fact, after noting that he is separated from his love by the water, he immediately remarks that "he wishes himself to be held" (cupit ipse teneri), and continues by noting that, when he leans forward to kiss, the boy in the pond does the same. He asks why they can't be together, why the boy in the pond seems to flee from him, and continues

"However I extend my arms for you, you extend voluntarily,

with laughter you laugh; I have also often seen your tears

at my weeping; you also send back signs from nodding

and, as far as I surmise by your handsome mouth's movement,

you return words that don't reach our ears!"

 

(cumque ego porrexi tibi bracchia, porrigis ultro,

cum risi, adrides; lacrimas quoque saepe notavi

me lacrimante tuas; nutu quoque signa remittis

et, quantum motu formosi suspicor oris,

verba refers aures non pervenientia nostras!)

At this point, he recognizes himself, but the recognition is brief and confused. He continues using plural words to describe himself and the boy he loves despite directly stating "this is me" (iste ego sum), and he references "two lives" (duo [...] anima) just before he stops talking. His tears trouble the water, and he promises to never leave the boy in the pool, at which point he despairs and slips back into speaking as though his reflection is a different person than himself. He makes a promise never to leave his beloved, and he dies gazing into the water, leaving behind the flower that shares his name.

Perhaps, like me, you don't think Narcissus as I just described sounds particularly proud or vain. After all, he seems much more concerned with power and reciprocation than with beauty and worthiness. The boy recognizes himself only after describing the reciprocal nature of this love, which I take to imply that, even while actively bewitched, a part of him knows that the only person who respects him enough to meet him exactly where he's comfortable is himself.

And then there's the larger context of the Metamorphoses to consider. This story is paralleled by the story of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis in Book IV—very shortly after Narcissus and Echo's story in Book III. They share some common tropes: a beautiful youth alone in the woods is stalked by a nymph until he is near a pool of water, at which point the nymph leaps from behind the treeline and assaults the youth. The key difference is that Salmacis is more straightforwardly portrayed as a rapist despite the context being essentially the same. Why would that be?

The Metamorphoses very often uses parallel stories to help bring forth the meaning intended. Early on, we get the story of Phaethon, a child of the sun who wishes to drive his father's chariot for a day. His father warns him not to fly too low or too high, lest he burn the Earth or the sky. Phaethon agrees, but when he is finally up there, he finds himself afraid and drives too low, thus scorching the Earth and leading to his death. Much later, we get the story of Icarus, the son of Daedalus who is given wings with which to fly. His father warns him not to fly too low or too high, lest the feathers be weighed down by humidity or burned by the sun. Icarus, in his ecstasy at the feeling of freedom, flies too high, thus scorching his wings and leading to his death. While the stories run in parallel, the children in them suffer from opposite errors, which serves to remind the reader that the key isn't necessarily to fly higher or to fly lower, but to fly with moderation. Don't soar above your abilities, but don't underestimate yourself either. Those both lead to the same result.

In the same way, we should read the parallels between Narcissus and Hermaphroditus as providing context for each other. Most relevantly, I believe, the story of Hermaphroditus is supposed to provide us a much more graphic depiction of fundamentally the same story and therefore remind us that the nymph (Salmacis/Echo) is a rapist and the youth (Hermaphroditus/Narcissus) is a victim. Ovid introduced the story as though Narcissus were at fault, and he uses the story of Hermaphroditus to ensure that we "see through the lie" (as it were).

So why would Ovid call Narcissus proud in the first place?

Nemesis's curse upon Narcissus is called iustis, meaning "just", "righteous", "proper", or "lawful". It's conspicuously not called bonis, which would mean "morally good", "honest", or "upright". Justus et bonus was a common construction in Roman speech, so Ovid intentionally says that the curse fits the laws and customs without necessarily being morally good. During the time that the poem was being written, teenage boys were expected to be very sexual and lustful. Furthermore, anything that deviated from traditional expectations was met with hostility and anger. So, if there happened to be a teenage boy who wasn't sexual and lustful, there must be something wrong with him. He's at fault for...not being interested. If, however, the genders in the story had been swapped, it would have been presented more in line with the other stories of women being assaulted in the poem.

By introducing the story with how it might be perceived by his audience, Ovid can draw a stark contrast between the initial claim and the story as presented, thus challenging the cultural conceptions of the time.

Throughout this section, I've been referring to Ovid's culture and Ovid's time, but our culture has the same issues. Female teachers sleeping with male students is met with far less widespread anger and hatred than male teachers sleeping with female students. Men's sexual assault is not generally taken very seriously. And, in a way, Ovid was forecasting modern struggles that the asexual community faces—a disinterest in or aversion to sexual contact is often seen as a moral failing.

Perhaps it is precisely our culture's stagnation on this issue that has led to Narcissus's story changing over time. Or perhaps the warping of Narcissus's story has made it easier for us to stagnate. Either way, let's jump ahead some hundreds of years...

The Thirteenth Century: Losing Context

(Narcissus Gazes at the Spring, from a 14th century edition of The Romance of the Rose)

Even after the fall of Rome, the stories found in the Metamorphoses had profound cultural relevance to Western Europe, and Narcissus was no exception. As it was retold, however, it lost the social criticism inherent to Ovid's rendition of the work. Those using the story—either intentionally or negligently—stripped out the bits that worked in Narcissus's favor, leaving a story that didn't challenge the initial claim that Narcissus was proud and vain. In this way, the story became a way to reinforce traditional values rather than challenge them.

One notable example of this is Guillaume de Lorris's Romance of the Rose from the 13th Century. In this poem, the story of Narcissus is told by an inscription on the fountain by which Narcissus died. Echo is recast as a noble lady and Narcissus as a handsome young man. Lady Echo loved him so much that she thought she'd die without his love, but he does not return her affections.

Yet, because of his great beauty

And his great pride, disdainfully,

He refused to grant her his love;

One no tears or prayers could move.

 

(Translated by A. S. Kline.) 

Lady Echo dies of a broken heart, but not before she prays to God "That Narcissus, with heart of stone, / Who wished to live and die alone, / Might one day by love be stricken, / Be scorched, and burned, and so sicken / He could expect from it no joy." The poem calls this prayer "true and devout", which carries a moral connotation in Christian works that isn't necessarily connected to the gods in Ovid. This poem also explicitly moralizes Narcissus's tale as one of fair punishment, and it warns

Ladies too, learn of this example,

Who toward your loves prove cruel,

For if you let your lovers die,

God will repay you thus, say I.

That is to say, young men and women have an obligation to give themselves up to those interested, regardless of how they feel about said person. After reading this inscription, the speaker refuses to look into the fountain for fear of meeting Narcissus's same fate. This casts the primary sin as vanity (looking at oneself too long), and in doing so equates rejection of romantic and sexual advances with vanity.

This tale is much shorter than the one presented in Ovid, and most of the cut material is that which gives sympathy to Narcissus. Gone is Echo's assault of Narcissus; gone is Narcissus's emphasis on reciprocation. The fountain is no longer an allegory for reciprocation but one for vanity. On an element-by-element level, most of what is in this poem is also in the Metamorphoses, but the omissions are vitally important for understanding how this changes the story.

Many of the sources from the Middle Ages were lost, and we aren't able to form a full picture of the path this story took from the Classical Period to the Modern Period. However, sources like the The Romance of the Rose give us a glimpse of what was going on: context was abandoned and the story was shortened into a straightforward fable that reinforced traditional values and expectations.

The Sixteenth Century: Shakespeare and Golding

(Caravaggio 1597)

The renewed interest in classical mythology, particularly in the texts of the Romans themselves, whipped into a frenzy in the Sixteenth Century. It was this century that saw the first direct translation of the Metamorphoses into English verse. This translation, rendered by Arthur Golding in 1567, that would go on to spark the literary imaginations of William Shakespeare and Edmund Spenser. Its popularity returned much of the context of Ovid back to the stories that had so far been transmitted by oral tradition. This blending of oral tradition and returns to classical sources—particularly the split and often contradictory versions of the tales—would go on to be a defining feature of how anglophone culture interacted with classical mythology, a trend that persists to modern day.

Arthur Golding's translation of the story of Narcissus is arguably the most successful in the English language. He treats it much with the same tone that Ovid does; for instance, he calls the prayer "just" rather than "true and devout", returning the connotations of what is proper rather than what is necessarily good. He also directly calls upon the reader to pity Narcissus, saying, "All these he woondreth to beholde, for which (as I doe gather) / Himselfe was to be woondred at, or to be pitied rather."

In this version of the work, Narcissus rejects Echo by saying, "I first will die ere thou shalt take of me thy pleasure," to which Echo responds, "take of me thy pleasure." Narcissus still emphasizes giving himself over to someone else, but Golding doesn't translate the word copia (power, ability, means of doing a thing) directly. This choice is almost certainly made for the poetic qualities of the work, and the translated line still alludes to the idea of having agency removed. However, removing the word copia from this translation eventually, as we'll see, evolves into removing the theme of power altogether.

Since this translation was the text used by influential poets in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, we can see references to Narcissus soften and betray a sympathy from the authors. Although Shakespeare only referenced Narcissus three times, his enduring influence as a writer in the English language gives us reason to examine him as a relevant source.

Two of Shakespeare's references to Narcissus—Antony and Cleopatra and "The Rape of Lucrece"—serve to use Narcissus's beauty as a reference point of comparison. While "The Rape of Lucrece" implies that Narcissus was enamored with his reflection for beauty's sake ("That had Narcissus seen her as she stood, / Self-love had never drown'd him in the flood."), this sort of construction is known in English poetry from that period. For instance, the speaker in Milton's "L'Allegro" asks Mirth for "Such strains as would have won the ear / Of Pluto, to have quite set free / His half-regained Eurydice." This suggests music that is miraculously beautiful rather than actually claiming anything could have swayed Pluto fully in Orpheus's favor. Similarly, I don't believe that Shakespeare intends for us to take his words in "The Rape of Lucrece" to indicate a sort of miraculous beauty that would have made even Narcissus abandon his reciprocal desires and his curse to pursue her. Still, it ties Narcissus's reflection closer to beauty, which helped tilt the cultural perception in that direction.

No, I find the reference to Narcissus in "Venus and Adonis" much more interesting. In this poem, Venus abducts the young Adonis from the back of his horse and assaults him. She pins him to the ground and forces kisses upon him, even as he tries to protest ("If thou wilt chide, thy lips shall never open"). She believes that she deserves his attention and his body, and that her demands pale in comparison to his beauty, thus making him owe her them ("'O, pity,' gan she cry, 'flint-hearted boy! / 'Tis but a kiss I beg; why art thou coy?'"). As Adonis continues to struggle to get out from under Venus, she compares him to Narcissus:

Is thine own heart to thine own face affected?

Can thy right hand seize love upon thy left?

Then woo thyself, be of thyself rejected,

Steal thine own freedom and complain on theft.

Narcissus so himself himself forsook,

And died to kiss his shadow in the brook.

She goes on to tell him that it his his "duty" to have sex with her, and that "by law of nature thou art bound to breed". This sort of entitlement is portrayed with sympathy towards Adonis, likening Adonis in Venus's arms to a bird tangled in a net and focusing on the fact that Venus is used to owning the men who fall under her spell—for instance, calling Mars "servile" and describing him as a "prisoner in a red-rose chain".

Furthermore, Adonis's youth is emphasized to the point where we wonder if Venus should be pursuing him even if he reciprocated. She tells him, "The tender spring upon thy tempting lip / Shows thee unripe; yet mayst thou well be tasted". The use of the word "unripe" implies that Venus is doing something wrong or unnatural by pursuing him now, rather than someone who is older. The emphasis on age echoes Ovid's account of Narcissus and Echo, and the comparison of Adonis to Narcissus is even more apt. Likening Adonis to Narcissus, then, shows favorably on Adonis's part and shows how depraved Venus (much like Echo) has become in her lust.

It makes sense that Shakespeare would see Narcissus this way, since Golding's translation of the Metamorphoses had brought the earlier intent behind the story to the forefront. Unfortunately, the variant of the story which served to reinforce traditional ideas of male sexuality would grow in relevance over time.

The Eighteenth Century: Rewritten in Translation

(Desenfans 1899, copy of Grupello 17th Century. Photo by Yair Haklai.)

In 1727, Sir Samuel Garth, M.D. published another influential translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Book III was translated by Joseph Addison, who took a...bold approach to the story of Narcissus. Up to now, we've discussed how the details that get included or excluded regarding Narcissus's encounter with Echo can make this a story of societal criticism or a story that upholds traditional values. It's very difficult to do this with Addison's translation, as he fails to include any details whatsoever.

  This Love-sick Virgin, over-joy'd to find

The Boy alone, still follow'd him behind;

When glowing warmly at her near Approach,

As Sulphur blazes at the Taper's Touch,

She long'd her hidden Passion to reveal,

And tell her Pains, but had not Words to tell:

She can't begin, but waits for the Rebound,

To catch his Voice, and to return the Sound.

  The Nymph, when nothing could Narcissus move,

Still dash'd with Blushes for her slighted Love,

Liv'd in the shady Covert of the Woods,

In solitary Caves and dark Abodes;

Where pining wander'd the rejected Fair,

'Till harrass'd out, and worn away with Care,

The sounding Skeleton, of Blood bereft,

Besides her Bones and Voice had nothing left.

Her Bones are petrify'd, her Voice is found

In Vaults, where still it doubles ev'ry Sound.

He completely skips over the encounter and waves it away as Narcissus being immobile in his pride. This obviously removes the context on the following sections that detail what he finds attractive about the boy in the water, but it also removes the parallels with Hermaphroditus and Salmacis later in the poem. While I don't usually like to read malice onto a creator's intentions, the fact that he abridged specifically this section with such ruthless devastation to the meaning of the story makes me suspicious that he removed the sympathy for Narcissus on purpose.

Another notable change that Addison made in his translation was the diminishment and removal of the men and boys who had been enamored with Narcissus. Although Ovid remarks that "many of those men, many girls longed for him" (multi illum iuvenes, multae cupiere puellae), and Golding faithfully tells us that "The hearts of dyvers trim yong men his beautie gan to move / And many a Ladie fresh and faire was taken in his love", Addison chooses to render the line this way:

Many a Friend the blooming Youth caress'd,

Many a Love-sick Maid her Flame confess'd:

Such was his Pride, in vain his Friend caress'd,

The Love-sick Maid in vain her Flame confess'd. 

Addison intentionally refrains from using distinctly masculine terms to refer to the "friends" here, as iuvenes refers to young men somewhere between 20 and 40. If Ovid had intended to refer to friends, he would have used a word like amicus, which doesn't appear in the relevant section of the poem. The emphasis on friendship, particularly with how the phrase "love-sick" is applied only to maidens, obliquely allows the interpretation that Narcissus was so proud that he rejected friendship as well as love. This interpretation has no basis in the work and would primarily serve to demonize Narcissus while removing the homosexual aspects of the myth, but I find it difficult to imagine that Addison was wholly unaware of this consequence of his choice (again, particularly since he had no reason to use the word "friend" either from the source text or from the previous influential translation).

When talking about the prayer the scorned would-be lover gave to Nemesis, Addison translates the poem as follows:

Thus did the Nymphs in vain caress the Boy,

He still was lovely but he still was Coy;

When one fair Virgin of the slighted Train

Thus pray'd the Gods, provok'd by his Disdain,

"Oh may he love like me, and love like me in vain!"

Rhamnusia pity'd the neglected Fair,

And with just Vengeance answer'd to her Pray'r.

Ovid (and Golding) both reference groups of men who Narcissus scorned before discussing the prayer, but Addison removes those men from his translation. Additionally, Ovid says, "He toyed this way with this, with other nymphs born of waves or mountains, before with a group of men; from which some disdainful hand lifting to the heavens [called out the prayer]" (Sic hanc, sic alias undis aut montibus ortas / luserat hic nymphas, sic coetus ante viriles; / inde manus aliquis despectus ad aethera tollens). While Ovid could have meant any hand from either of the groups mentioned, Golding found the proximity to the group of men compelling enough to say "his hands up to heaven bent" (emphasis added by me). Addison, on the other hand, takes care to tell us that it was a fair Virgin (and so a girl) who prayed for vengeance.

But let's resist the temptation to assume that Addison removed all references to homosexuality from his translation of this story; Narcissus is permitted to retain his homosexual inclinations when he falls in love with his reflection. By making Narcissus the only homosexual in this story, and by going out of his way to demonize Narcissus to no end, Addison very clearly shows us how he feels about homosexuals and the sort of person they are.

As a result of this translation, the demonization of "sexual deviance" would unfortunately go on to be a defining characteristic of discussions including Narcissus, particularly with the rise of the field of psychology.

The Twentieth Century: "Narcissism"

(Waterhouse 1903) 

Psychology is on the rise. The foremost thinkers of this burgeoning field have a love of classical mythology and a penchant for naming disorders after mythological figures. Paul Näcke and Havelock Ellis have introduced terms relating to Narcissus when describing aberrations in the human mind. All it takes is one very loud and memorable voice to popularize the term and make it impossible to think of Narcissus without thinking of someone who is mentally unwell. In the right hands, this word could become so entrenched in everyday speech that it carries Narcissus's reputation for over a century.

In 1914, Sigmund Freud published the paper "On Narcissism". In it, he describes narcissism (as exemplified by the character Narcissus) as a sexual perversion in which someone points their sex drive at themselves rather than at another. The narcissist is self-absorbed and in need of constant validation, and he responds to the slightest perceived insult or lack of attention very negatively. He has an inflated sense of self-importance, and his world is incredibly egocentric.

This description has haunted Narcissus ever since.

As discussed, Narcissus had undergone several bouts of revision and reaction as anglophone culture struggled to decide if he would be a symbol of normalized sexual violence or a cautionary tale to anyone who didn't fit into the accepted sexual norm. With the popularization of Freud's Narzissmus, our culture slotted itself into the second view. Narcissus was the prototype for a specific kind of sexual perversion, the sort where someone doesn't care to partake in sexual relations with others. And that, of course, entailed arrogance, insecurity, and self-importance.

In the same essay, Freud claims that there is a "significance of narcissistic object-choice for homosexuality in men", as the desire to love another man is inherently an extension of the desire to love oneself. As with Addison, Narcissus is described as a sexual deviant, which is equated with—or at least linked to—homosexuality. Regardless of however Freud ended up feeling about homosexuality (this is the topic of some debate that I can't comment on), the parallels drawn in "On Narcissism" served to demonize homosexuality, demonize asexuality, and equate a lack of sex drive with extreme self-absorption. Homosexual and asexual people still have accusations of narcissism thrown at them, in large part due to the influence of Freud and this paper. And, because of Narcissus's roots, this idea of narcissism and the connotations surrounding it has gone on to make it more difficult to discuss sexual assault of men as seriously and sympathetically as we usually discuss sexual assault of women.

Shortly after Freud published this essay, Brookes More published his translation of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Unsurprisingly, Narcissus suffers even more in this translation than in previous translations. More prefers "youths" to Golding's "yong men", and the only indicator he gives of male suitors is in describing the one praying to Nemesis as "lifting his hands to Heaven" (which, of course, is more than Addison gave the men in the story). He claims that Narcissus "despised" the young man who raised a prayer against him, a characterization missing from the original text.

Where Addison avoided describing the encounter between Narcissus and Echo, More straightforwardly lies about it. According to More, Narcissus rejects Echo by saying,

"Take off your hands! you shall not fold your arms around me. Better death than such a one should ever caress me!" 

"Such a one". Narcissus is turned into a boy concerned with Echo's quality and value, rather than the power and autonomy in the original work. He has been stripped of his concerns regarding his independence and rather belittles Echo, leading to her grieving death.

I need to emphasize that neither More nor Addison present their works as retellings or reimaginings but as translations. They claim that this is the content of Ovid's work, and in doing so they seek to convince people that there is not an older version of the story more sympathetic to the character. The obvious issues with the portrayal of Narcissus, then, are assumed to have been Ovid's intent, and they're either accepted as the "proper" part of our folklore tapestry or serve to push people away from Ovid in general. Either way, More and Addison work to normalize the stigmatization of young men who are not interested in sexual relationships with women (or sexual relationships in general) and blot the story that would validate those who feel pressured to engage in sexual relationships they are uncomfortable with from our cultural tapestry.

These two works defined the view of Narcissus for the century to come. However, the Twenty-First Century saw a resurgence of interest in classical mythology, particularly on the internet, which brought a new wave of perspectives on the character.

A Brief Aside About Amenias

If your knowledge of classical mythology is rooted in sources from the Twenty-First Century, you may be wondering why I haven't mentioned Amenias, the other named lover who Narcissus spurned. In truth, Amenias only became relevant recently. Earlier artists were far more interested in the lengthy narrative of Narcissus and Echo than the very brief narrative of Amenias summarized by Photius. However, two incredibly popular sources from the Twenty-First Century reference him, so it's worth talking about him now.

The other reason I have been reluctant to reference Amenias is that, unlike Latin, I can't read the original Greek his tale is recorded in. As such, I am relying on the translation of Brady Kiesling. My experience with translations of Narcissus is cause for worry, as you've seen, so the fact that I can't validate Kiesling's translation for myself makes me hesitant. Regardless, his translation goes as follows:

In Thespeia of Boeotia (a city not far from Helikon) a child was born, Narcissus, very handsome and dismissive of both Eros and lovers. While all the other lovers tried and gave up, Ameinias kept insisting and beseeching. Narcissus did not yield and sent him a sword instead. He did away with himself at Narcissus' doorway, after beseeching the god to avenge him. Narcissus saw his own image and shape reflected in the water of a spring and becomes his own first and only true love, an unnatural one. Finally, at a loss and thinking he was suffering justly for having insulted the love of Ameinias, he did himself in. And from that the Thespians honor and reverence Eros especially, and learned to sacrifice to him both in the common rituals and privately. The locals believe that the narcissus flower first sprang up on that ground where the blood of Narcissus was spilt.

(From Conon's Narrations.) 

That's it. That's our entire knowledge of Amenias from the ancient world. The writers of the Twenty-First Century who care for Amenias usually do so alongside Echo, so we'll see how this story gets added into the tale and what gets emphasized and removed.

The Twenty-First Century: And the Wheel Keeps Turning

(Overly Sarcastic Productions 2018)

The emergence of the internet changed how people communicate. More people are able to join the conversation, and new perspectives and attitudes are appended to the discussions that have been going on for hundreds (if not thousands) of years. What is of particular interest to us is the way in which the internet can give a voice to people who have historically been marginalized. Since anyone can make a website or a blog, the traditional structures that have emphasized certain voices can no longer effectively control the entrance to the conversation. So they don't. As the internet becomes more popular, we see more diverse voices even in traditional spaces, as ideas and demand for those ideas can spread before they hit traditional publishers, not after.

As discussed in the section regarding the Twentieth Century, the story of Narcissus was solidified into one used for marginalization and had its more sympathetic elements erased. Well, the people that these edits sought to marginalize or pathologize now have a medium to push back and reclaim the story. The two conceptions of Narcissus—oppressed symbol of social coercion or self-important jerk—clash online, leading to what we see now: very different perceptions coexisting and often leading to arguments or exaggerated portrayals.

In 2017, Stephen Fry released his book Mythos: The Greek Myths Reimagined. This book is incredibly popular, and if someone online asks for book recommendations for those just getting into classical mythology, its appearance is inevitable. Fry's depiction of Narcissus is potentially the most sympathetic we have seen so far. Amenias is woven into the narrative as a suitor who had harassed Narcissus ("Amenias would not accept 'no' for an answer and took to haunting Narcissus's every step"), which emphasizes that "Ameinias kept insisting and beseeching" (Conon). During this section, Fry emphasizes Narcissus's young age as referenced in Ovid, saying that "[Amenias] joined him on his morning walk to school". From this emphasis, we already form a very favorable view of Narcissus and a very unfavorable view of Amenias.

Fry diverges from Conon's version of the Amenias story by omitting the detail about Narcissus sending him a sword. Rather, Fry has Narcissus yell at Amenias to leave him alone. I've always interpreted the sword as Narcissus telling Amenias to leave him alone one way or another, and Fry seems to interpret it the same. But rather than include the sword and risk tarnishing Narcissus's reputation, Fry plays it safe to ensure his readers understand what's going on. Amenias proceeds to hang himself outside of Narcissus's window, and the whole episode gives Narcissus his strong and instant aversion to any suitors going forward.

This aversion is used as the reason for Narcissus's immediate distaste of Echo, rather than sexual assault (which is removed). In this way, Fry sets himself to work within the general bounds of the most well-known versions of the story in our culture, and he avoids including the sexual assault that would be both difficult to read and difficult for some to place in the Narcissus story they already know. Narcissus doesn't turn Echo away immediately, and he shows a great deal of patience before threatening her to make her leave, thus making him come across even more collected and reasonable. He is turned into a flower after pining away at his reflection not as a marker of death but as a boon from the gods so that he may continue to look at himself forever. Thus he places the gods as at least sympathetic to Narcissus, and he invites the reader to empathize with him by asking, "By this definition, which of us can honestly disown our share of narcissism?"

Stephen Fry, it would seem, seeks to make Narcissus as appealing as possible to the modern audience. He also refrains from incorporating any suggestions of pride, even ironically like Ovid did. If we read this tale as an attempt to convince the modern readers to see Narcissus as an attempt to show the modern reader Narcissus's sympathetic qualities, and I think we should, then his removal of references to pride work to avoid drawing up connotations the reader would be familiar with. Since the idea of pride has been used genuinely for so long, it would be impossible for Fry to mention it at all without influencing the reader against Narcissus.

If Fry's Mythos is the most sympathetic telling we've gotten so far, Overly Sarcastic Productions's 2018 YouTube video "Miscellaneous Myths: Narcissus" is the least. Like the book Mythos, this video is very popular, having garnered 3.2 Million views at the time of writing this article. Overly Sarcastic Productions (or OSP for short) claims on their website to make educational videos suitable for "studying for a test or essay in school", and on their FAQ page they further claim that their videos are suitable for use in courses. So one would expect that, regardless of editorializing for entertainment value, the stories they present are good indicators of the sources they claim to talk about.

And it's worth noting that this video is presented no differently than any other video they have made with that intention. At the end of the video, they say that the stories of Echo and Amenias are found in Ovid's Metamorphoses and Conon's Narrations, respectively. If one didn't already know the content of these sources, they might believe that Red (the member of the duo who narrated this particular video) was relaying the contents of those sources faithfully. However, Red either lies about the content of the sources or about reading the sources in the first place.

As a minor yet relevant comment, Red includes a very strange comment after the sources that seems to imply that wanting to verify the sources is not standard behavior, and thus paints checking her claims as at least a little weird.

As pictured at the beginning of this section, Red depicts Narcissus as someone "who loves nothing more than to talk about how pretty he is". She goes on to say this:

"While characters like Artemis and Athena set a mythological precedent for the perpetually single, it's not that Narcissus isn't into people like that, he's just way too arrogant to ever feel like anyone's worth his time."

Red additionally depicts Narcissus as rejecting Echo in a similar manner to how More depicts him: they both claim he focuses on Echo's unworthiness rather than on his own autonomy.

As we've discussed, this is not an accurate portrayal of Narcissus in the Metamorphoses. This is essentially the More translation taken to a comedic extreme. As such, Red contributes to all the same things that More was trying to achieve.

Additionally, when Red points out characters from mythology who are not interested in relationships, she singles out Athena and Artemis. However, a far more apt comparison would have been to a character like Hippolytus, who was another hunter who rejected romantic advances and was divinely punished for it. Hippolytus was described as a devout follower of Artemis, and so definitely "not into people like that". However, he is excluded in favor of Athena, one of the typical virgin goddesses. This move, whether malicious or not, feeds into the long-standing idea that women who choose to avoid relationships are sympathetic, while men who avoid relationships are not. This was the attitude that Ovid was directly criticizing.

During the Amenias section, Red continues to have Narcissus talk about his appearance, which is nowhere in the source she is supposedly educating people on.

Red's depiction of Amenias is much closer to the original text, but she makes one startling omission: in her version, Narcissus uses the sword as a first resort, and Amenias doesn't have his notable failure to take 'no' for an answer.

In fact, Red makes Amenias actually consider just leaving Narcissus alone after the one attempt, with Narcissus being the one to tell him that's not an option.

Red then says that Nemesis just guides Narcissus to his reflection as his punishment, and that his obsession with himself and love of staring at his reflection does the rest. This is obviously contrary to the Metamorphoses, in which Narcissus doesn't even recognize himself, implying either that he's bewitched or that he doesn't know what he looks like (and so has never looked at his reflection).

Since OSP is so important and popular, and especially since they portray their videos as ones that educate viewers on the content of classical sources, this video has affected the folklore tradition in much the same way as Addison and More's translations, as discussed above.

Another important source to consider online is the Theoi Project. This is a place that is often referenced as "the best online resource for anything related to Greek Mythology" (from the Beginner's Guide on the Greek Mythology Reddit forum). Specifically, it is praised for its collection of source texts available to be read for free. However, the Theoi Project chose to use the More translation of the Metamorphoses rather than a more accurate translation version like the Golding translation, despite the Golding translation being in the public domain. This, combined with the general prejudice that supposes that newer translations are always more accurate, lends an air of authority to the More translation that it absolutely should not have. And when people are directed to this website to read sources, they might not walk away aware of other options available.

Additionally, the Theoi Project page for Narcissus himself shows him filed under "Villains", and it uncritically describes Narcissus as cruel and arrogant, which helps propagate that view of the character. 

Of course, there have also been shifts in perception from communities not directly influenced by the internet. For example, 2006 saw the publication of Arash Javanbakht's paper "Was the Myth of Narcissus Misinterpreted by Freud? Narcissus, a Model for Schizoid–Histrionic, Not Narcissistic, Personality Disorder" in The American Journal of Psychoanalysis. Javanbakht criticizes Freud for failing to consider how Narcissus was cursed by Nemesis, and for characterizing Narcissus as a self-obsessed individual when that was not present in the original story. Javanbakht takes a more sympathetic view of Narcissus, supposing that someone like him could result from "a chaotic family with much quarreling between the parents, which caused the child to separate himself from the quarrels of his environment" but who "was never loved by his parents unconditionally (the parents could be of the obsessive–compulsive personality type) and was approved of (I refuse to say loved) only if he was perfect and adjusted to their rules, and was also encouraged to be attractive to the eyes of other people by his parents". Therefore, Javanbakht says, Narcissus is characterized by "two needs, solitude (for security) and attraction of attention (for seeking unconditional maternal love and approval and the feeling of being good)". Although this is far more sympathetic than Freud's view, it still fundamentally treats Narcissus as mentally ill. Additionally, it continues in the tradition of blaming Narcissus for Echo's advances, saying, "If he really did like to be alone, he could easily have behaved in a way to be less attractive to others."

Lastly, I would be remiss if I did not comment on the enduring relevance of the Percy Jackson books. Many people, particularly Generation Z, were introduced to classical mythology by reading these books as children, and they continue to influence the general perception of mythological figures, especially with younger audiences and the internet. In 2012, The Mark of Athena was released as the newest book in the Percy Jackson franchise, and it briefly depicted Narcissus. Here, Narcissus was fully aware that he was looking at himself, and he constantly talked about how attractive he was ("I'm so hot", etc.). Additionally, Echo is portrayed as a despondent yet compassionate nymph and the one person who actually cares about Narcissus and wants what's best for him. These portrayals can be found throughout discussions by young adults, with "sweet and soft and caring Echo" growing more popular in such media as the 2025 game Hades II.

So that's how we got here. Is Narcissus a villain? It depends on what you believe. If you think that an aversion to relationships is a sign of a sickness or that people are obligated to reciprocate romantic and sexual attraction when it is expressed to them, then yes, Narcissus has always been a villain. If you prefer to look at the versions like those spread by Addison, More, or OSP, you'll have to wrestle and make peace with the fact that these versions exist to misinform others about classical sources, and that this version of the story was specifically created to justify society-wide sexual coercion and reinforcement of traditional sexual hierarchies.

If, on the other hand, you want to see a character who symbolizes the tendency for society to say that a young man or teenage boy's failure to express interest in sex is the mark of a deficiency or disease, then Narcissus may just be the unsung hero you've been looking for.

Works Cited

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Conon. n.d. Narrations. Translated by Brady Kiesling. ToposText. Accessed April 9, 2026. https://topostext.org/work.php?work_id=489.

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Overly Sarcastic Productions. 2018a. Miscellaneous Myths: Narcissus. Performed by Red. Miscellaneous Myths. 4:29. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGwZXCbHoWc.

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