Narcissus Is My Hero

This past spring I had the pleasure of taking a class about the classical writings of the great writers from both Rome and Greece back in the days of Socrates. I had been looking for a reason to pick up the stories of the Metamorphosis, Odyssey, and Oedipus Rex (because my laziness hindered me from doing it on my own). Not only did I have, if I may say so, a scrumptiously delicious yet knowledgeable teacher (Is your last name greek?? you teach Italian? so what are YOU doing after class *drool*) His lesson plans included some of the must reads of classic literature. In no particular order are the stories I favored: Aeneid, Inferno, Oedipus Rex, Songs of Roland, beautiful poetry of Sappho from the island of (I kid you not) Lesbos, and Narcissus and Echo. We read many other stories; some I could hardly put down and others I could hardly read because of how boring they were. However, one story in particular that I had already grown to know was that of Narcissus and Echo. Growing up I had heard about the tale of a extraordinary beautiful man who saw himself in a pond on day and died after falling in love with and staring at his reflection shown in the water. What I did not know was that Narcissus was terribly mean and self centered and his agony in watching something he could never have, himself. He did not fall in love with himself on a whim, of course the Gods had something to do with it after another lad, upset over the nonexistent affection he craved from Narcissus, prayed to them about it. And the poor dear Echo, the chatterbox who lost her ability to carry on a regular conversation; forced to only repeat the ends of sentences back to those who spoke to her first. She withered away into nothingness, only sound over her love-loss of Narcissus. The whole story is made up of those who have no ability to control what will happen to them. Its quite beautiful.

Classic Narcissus and Echo

   In the end, I took away from the story something I really should not have. NARCISSUS WAS AN OBSESSIVE SELF-ACTUALIZED BEING!!! WWWAAAHHH!!!!??? Yes! I said it! Narcissus (though a bit obsessive with it) was able to not only find himself, but also LOVE himself! Now I know he ends up dead in the end, but really take some time to think about this. If we as a person loved ourselves a little more, not only would be available to love another with ease, but we would know ourselves and could better ourselves and self-actualize. I read this story and was envious of his ability to love one's self before all others!(kind of sick) Now this is not a usual thing to take away from a story like this. I think the moral may have been, besides the underlining moral throughout the entire book of stories that you have no control over a thing, to not be a jerk even if you are beautiful (maybe not to talk to much either less you lose your ability to...). The really cool side moral is to love yourself. Maybe its not really a moral, but it surely can't hurt you in the long run. Loving others and doing for others and caring about others is not a bad thing,but taking some time out to love yourself first can't hurt either. Unless, your Narcissus....which in that case is gonna end pretty badly (but that's not your name so you should be fiiiiinnnneee!!) Love yourself first, and the rest will follow with much ease.

 Ciao baby.

Modern renditions