NARCISSUS AND HIS ERASTAI
Narcissus, the Latin for Narkissos Νάρκισσος, was an exceptionally beautiful mythological Boiotian boy of fifteen who died after falling hopelessly in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Unlike most Greek mythological figures, he cannot be associated with pseudo-historical events, and the suffix to his name, -issos, is said to suggest he belonged to the age before Indo-Europeans settled in Greece. Though there are many allusions to him in ancient literature, none of them are earlier than the first century BC and the iconographic evidence for the myth of him can be traced no further back than the third century BC. [1]
The longest and most famous account of him was around the beginning of the Christian era by the Roman poet Ovid, who attributes his death to his disdainful dismissal of the many youths and maidens who fell in love with him, inviting Nemesis. A different account by Konon, probably but not certainly a little earlier, mentions only his male lovers. Both had long been presumed to have taken “the tale, which probably originated as a Thespian local legend, from a Hellenistic collection of transformation myths.”[2] Until recently, it was impossible to be sure which account more faithfully represented old tradition, but a fragment of another account in a papyrus discovered and published in 2005 in Volume LXIX of The Oxyrhynchus Papyri is thought to be from a much earlier work by the influential Parthenios of Nikaia, who came to Rome in 73 BC. This conforms with Konon’s version, saying, for example, that Narcissus killed himself rather than pining fatally away, and suggests that Ovid’s inclusion of love-stricken maidens may be a late interpolation.
Presented here are the Greek love elements of both Konon and Ovid’s accounts. None of the several other references to Narcissus, all later apart from the afore-mentioned papyrus, mention his erastai (older male suitors).
Konon Κόνων wrote between 37 and 16 BC a collection of fifty mythological stories drawn from many older sources called Diegeseis Διηγήσεις (Narratives), which have been preserved in epitome only in the 9th-century Bibliotheke of Photios, Patriarch of Constantinople. They were translated as The Narratives of Konon by Malcolm Kenneth Brown, published in Munich by K. G. Saur in 2002, in which the original Greek text for what follows may be found on p. 172.
The twenty-fourth. In Thespeia in Boeotia (the town is not far from Mt. Helikon) a boy was born, Narkissos, extremely beautiful and disdainful of Eros and erastai. And the rest of his erastai swore off loving [him], but Ameinias was very persistent and importunate. When, however, [Narkissos] did not admit him but even sent him a sword, [Ameinias] killed himself before Narkissos’ doors after earnestly beseeching the god to avenge him. When Narkissos saw his own face and form at a fountain, reflected in the water, he became the first and only paradoxical lover of himself. Finally, at a loss and believing that he suffered justly in return for his contemptuous treatment of Ameinias’ passionate desires, he killed himself. And from that time the Thespians decided to revere and honor Eros more and to sacrifice to him privately in addition to the public sacrifices. The inhabitants believe that the narcissus flower first appeared from that spot of ground on which the blood of Narkissos was shed.
P. Ovidius Naso was a Roman poet. His most famous work, the Metamorphoses, in fifteen books, finished in AD 8, tells of transformations in Greek and Roman mythology.
The translation is by Frank Justus Miller for the Loeb Classical Library volume 42, published by William Heinemann in London in 1916.
344-355
| When her time came the beauteous nymph brought forth a child, whom a nymph might love even as a child, and named him Narcissus. When asked whether this child would live to reach well-ripened age, the seer replied: “If he ne’er know himself.” Long did the saying of the prophet seem but empty words. But what befell proved its truth—the event, the manner of his death, the strangeness of his infatuation. For Narcissus had reached his sixteenth year and might seem either boy or man. Many youths and many maidens sought his love; but in that slender form was pride so cold that no youth, no maiden touched his heart. | enixa est utero pulcherrima pleno [345] infantem nymphe, iam tunc qui posset amari, Narcissumque vocat. de quo consultus, an esset tempora maturae visurus longa senectae, fatidicus vates “si se non noverit” inquit. vana diu visa est vox auguris: exitus illam [350] resque probat letique genus novitasque furoris. namque ter ad quinos unum Cephisius annum addiderat poteratque puer iuvenisque videri: multi illum iuvenes, multae cupiere puellae; sed fuit in tenera tam dura superbia forma, [355] nulli illum iuvenes, nullae tetigere puellae. |
402-406
After Narcissus has spurned the nymph Echo, causing her to fade away:
| Thus had Narcissus mocked her, thus had he mocked other nymphs of the waves or mountains; thus had he mocked the companies of men. At last one of these scorned youth, lifting up his hands to heaven, prayed: “So may he himself love, and not gain the thing he loves!” The goddess, Nemesis, heard his righteous prayer. | Sic hanc, sic alias undis aut montibus ortas luserat hic nymphas, sic coetus ante viriles; inde manus aliquis despectus ad aethera tollens [405] “sic amet ipse licet, sic non potiatur amato!” dixerat: adsensit precibus Rhamnusia iustis. |
415-25
Narcissus, resting from hunting, has lain down by a clear pool in the woods:
| While he seeks to slake his thirst another thirst springs up, and while he drinks he is smitten by the sight of the beautiful form he sees. He loves an unsubstantial hope and thinks that substance which is only shadow. He looks in speechless wonder at himself and hangs there motionless in the same expression, like a statue carved from Parian marble. Prone on the ground, he gazes at his eyes, twin stars, and his locks, worthy of Bacchus, worthy of Apollo; on his smooth cheeks, his ivory neck, the glorious beauty of his face, the blush mingled with snowy white: all things, in short, he admires for which he is himself admired. Unwittingly he desires himself; | [415] dumque sitim sedare cupit, sitis altera crevit, dumque bibit, visae correptus imagine formae spem sine corpore amat, corpus putat esse, quod umbra est. adstupet ipse sibi vultuque inmotus eodem haeret, ut e Pario formatum marmore signum; [420] spectat humi positus geminum, sua lumina, sidus et dignos Baccho, dignos et Apolline crines inpubesque genas et eburnea colla decusque oris et in niveo mixtum candore ruborem, cunctaque miratur, quibus est mirabilis ipse: [425] se cupit inprudens |
Narcissus pines and withers away from frustrated longing for himself until all that is left is a flower.
[1] For example, “A terracotta statuette of Narkissos from Tanagra, dated to the 3rd cent. BC, has survived.” (Malcolm Kenneth Saur, The Narratives of Konon, Munich: K. G. Saur, p. 174).
[2] Malcolm Kenneth Saur, The Narratives of Konon, Munich: K. G. Saur, p. 173
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