Narcissus Myth Quotes

According to the Greek myth, Narcissus was a hunter who was exceptionally beautiful and proud. He was so proud, in fact, that he rejected anyone who tried to love him. Nemesis, the goddess of revenge, decided to punish Narcissus. She lured him to a pool of water where he was able to see his own reflection. He fell madly in love with himself and stared at his reflection until he died.

The Greek myth of Narcissus is directly concerned with a fact of human experi­ence, as the word Narcissus indicates. It is from the Greek word narcosis, or numb­ness. The youth Narcissus mistook his own reflection in the water for another person. This extension of himself by mirror numbed his perceptions until he became the servomechanism of his own extended or repeated image. The nymph Echo tried to win his love with fragments of his own speech, but in vain. He was numb. He had adapted to his extension of himself and had become a closed system. Now the point of this myth is the fact that men at once become fascinated by any extension of themselves in any ma­terial other than themselves. There have been cynics who insisted that men fall deep­est in love with women who give them back their own image. Be that as it may, the wisdom of the Narcissus myth does not convey any idea that Narcissus fell in love with anything he regarded as himself. Obviously he would have had very different feelings about the image had he known it was an extension or repetition of himself. It is, perhaps, indicative of the bias of our intensely technological and, therefore, narcotic culture that we have long interpreted the Narcissus story to mean that he fell in love with himself, that he imagined the reflection to be Narcissus!

narcissism; named after the Greek myth of Narcissus, this is the idea of someone being so preoccupied with fulfilling their own needs that their actions are at the expense of others.

Our virtual self becomes a constant reflection of what we’ve done today, what we think today, what we’ve seen today, and what other people think about what we’ve done, what we think, and about what we’ve seen. In other words, it is very easy for us to use social media as an electronic embodiment of the Narcissus myth, or—if you will—an electronic hall of mirrors.

The connections to the legend of Osiris – and indeed to Christianity – were curious, with the echo of the creation of a new god, and the circumstances of Antinous’ death also echoed the superficial but alluring themes of popular Greek myths. There was Hylas, companion of Heracles and the Argonauts, who was drowned by adoring water nymphs who drew him into the spring where he had been sent to fetch water. There was Narcissus, who under Aphrodite’s curse was fatally entranced by his own reflection in the surface of a pool. Antinous the god joined the company of beautiful boys with powerful, if capricious, protectors, who met strange, watery deaths. Antinous was a perfect divinity for the second-century world of the imagination.

is dead. ‘You’re on your own now, baby,’ he informed me more than once and gleefully from his hospital bed. I miss the discipline they all imposed on my days and I find it hard to structure life around myself, despite the necessary impositions of work. This perhaps will come with practice. But from this new freedom I have learned a great deal about what I do and don’t need; I have also learned to be careful about wishes, for they often come true. And I realise now that this is a fine time. I don’t care about being young or old or whatever. I am past the anxieties of earlier days, no longer concerned about image or identity or A-levels, no longer fearful of shop assistants or doctors’ receptionists. I can admit, without giving a damn, to being a slut, liking salad cream, holding certain politically incorrect views. I can still change and grow, mentally and physically. At this interesting point in life, one may be whoever and whatever age one chooses. One may drink all night, smash bones in hunting accidents, travel the spinning globe. One may teach one’s grandchildren rude rhymes and Greek myths. One may also move very slowly round the garden in a shapeless coat, planting drifts of narcissus bulbs for latter springs.

People often think of Narcissus as the symbol of excessive self-regard, but in fact, he exemplifies the opposite. As the Renaissance philosopher Marsilio Ficino observed in the 1500s, Narcissus did not suffer from an overabundance of self-love, but rather from its deficiency. The myth is a parable about paralysis. The youth, who first appears in restless motion, is suddenly rooted to one spot, unable to leave the elusive spirit. As Ficino remarked, if Narcissus had possessed real self-love, he would have been able to leave his fascination. The curse of Narcissus is immobilization, not out of love for himself, but out of dependency upon his image.

Piff and his colleagues also have found that wealthier people are more prone to entitlement and narcissistic behavior than poorer ones are. Literally narcissistic! In the classic myth, Narcissus falls in love with his own reflection. In a study of 244 undergraduates, Piff observed that “upper-class” individuals were more likely than their “lower-class” counterparts to regard themselves in a mirror before posing for a photo they were assured nobody would ever see. This was the case even after researchers adjusted the results to account for differences in ethnicity, gender, and the participants’ previously reported levels of self-consciousness. In another memorable experiment, Piff’s team placed a pedestrian at the edge of a busy crosswalk near the Berkeley campus and watched to see which drivers would stop and let the person cross. They recorded vehicle makes and models and estimated ages and genders of the drivers. It was impossible, of course, to know anyone’s true economic circumstances and motivations, but suffice it to say that Fords and Subarus were far more likely to stop than Mercedes and BMWs were. In a related experiment, people driving higher-end cars were more likely to cut off other drivers at a busy intersection.

Narcissistic personality disorder is somewhat misnamed. It conjures an image of a person who is in love with himself, a person who regards himself above all others. That isn’t accurate. The defining feature of the Narcissus myth is that when Narcissus looks into the water, he sees only his own reflection. That is how it is with people with NPD. They look into a world, into their relationships, and are so terrified, so misshapen they can only see self-protective images of themselves, who their kids will be, who their spouse is, what this or that idea represents to the world.