Today I went to the bookstore and purchased the bestseller the alchemist by Paulo Coelho. The first chapter delt with the myth of Narcissus. According to the Greek myth Narcissus was a man so vain that he fell in love with his reflection in the river Styx and the enchanted waters changed him into a flower. This is the source of the term narcissism. According to legend the wood nymph Echo came upon Narcissus and fell in love with him. As you know doubt can guess could only report the words she would hear. But Narcissus stopped to drink from the pool told his reflection ‘I Love You’ and hearing this Echo repeated it, but to no avail. Narcissus was so in love with his own reflection and in this version of the myth he became so distracted by the image in the pool that he neglected eating, drinking, or sleeping that he wasted away and died. In this version a beautiful flower grew up from the place where he dies. Also, the broken-hearted Echo also pined away and died, only leaving nothing but her voice leaving only her echo behind. But Narcissus was no ordinary boy. He was so incredibly handsome due to his origin as a male woodland nymph. His origins are supernatural with his father being the river spirit Kephisos and his mother the nymph Lieriope or Lilly Face. The myth of Narcissus maybe one of the sources of mirrors being magical devices and, in some myths, having the ability to steal souls. Some of the lore held that the curse placed on Narcissus maybe his callous rejection of Echo may have angered the goddess Aphrodite and she cast a curse on him which led him into reincarnation into a flower.
And so, it goes