Narcissus is one of our most celebrated villains, the great granddaddy to many we love to hate. Easy to love, easy to hate. True to form, Narcissus himself could dash off a list of the top ten reasons he is supremely lovable—that is, if you’re not too self-involved to notice what’s so obvious. Thus, it took just a split second for Echo the mountain nymph to be won over by his good looks when she spied him in the woods.
At this point in a psychodrama, a more pragmatic lover might take caution: hunter in the woods, lost; a professional outdoorsman, yet lost. From Echo’s perspective, no points needed subtracting from this Greek with his god-like figure, though he was failing in his one vocation. Her whole being reverberted the moment she saw his physical beauty. The hunter became prey. Echo the stalker was born, as was an early case study of codependency.
Narcissus’ immediate and definitive reaction to Echo’s desperate efforts to woo him was to reject her firmly, as he had every other hopeful lover. Points for consistency there. To be fair, Echo’s pursuit was also hampered by the curse of a former lover’s wife: Echo could only utter the words she had last heard. This was her particular punishment for being a renowned chatterbox who had used her prattling to deceive (read: protect herself) in her previous tryst (read: exploitative relationship). Whatever your perspective on misogyny, this gal came with baggage and the bellhop wasn’t having it.
But his sound rejection of Echo was to be his last. The gods, watching Narcissus disparage all who offered him love, cursed him for being so… well… just so narcissistic. From then on out, Narcissus would only ever be enamoured with himself. This is where finding his reflection in the pond comes into play, and it doesn’t work out in the nice, incense-scented, “Elephant Journal” self- love sort of way.
To set the scene: Here is Narcissus, whispering sweet nothings to his image in the water, while Echo tentatively hovers, repeating his every word. Her matching his romantic playlist of “you’re simply the best’s” and “all of me/loves all of you’s” and “I found a love for me/darling just dive right in’s” obviously didn’t cure his self-obsession. Let’s call it as we see it: Echo was an enabler. She was right there triggering, as Narcissus dove over the brink.
Both characters ultimately die longing for love, all the while clinging to the belief that they'd found their One & Only. Various plots conclude with Narcissus starving, too self-infatuated to eat; drowning; or blooming gloriously into a garden variety perennial. Keeping with the genre, our leading lady’s story is left comparatively undeveloped; she is described as wandering, withering in her own disordered eating, and eventually fading away in a cave.
Her resting place is rather appropriate, given the easy application here of Plato’s illustrious Allegory. He’d suggest that Narcissus and Echo were our fellow cave prisoners. Rattling our chains, we too watch the flickering on the walls of fake news and shadows of truth.
While it’s easy to hate on mythical figures, particularly Narcissus, Echo and ghosting friends, we do so because we can more easily recognize when others are not in touch with reality. But we’d do well to include ourselves here. How and when might we come fully to our senses, the philosopher Kant asks. How do we get out of the cave and more fully experience the real world? Narcissus’ and Echo’s intense desires and fears hindered them from truly experiencing love; just so, many of us are holed up in the cave, yet audaciously lay claim to knowing a whole lot more of the world. So, what are we missing?
Here are the spoilers in my soapbox opera’s playbill: Self-reflection, while a vital starting point, only gets us so far on a path connecting us with others; it provides for a shallow understanding of the depths of human experience. On the other hand, obsessing over what could be or what might have been in our lives, sulking in the shadows of that grief and desire for others, is also a very limited way of existing. To truly experience and grow in the human’s capacity for love, we lift our eyes and step out into the open. No matter how afraid, or self-conscious, or lonely or hurt we already are, we pick up our baggage and greet one another with a welcoming, compassionate heart. Easy to love? Not so easy.
The Echoes Series simply is exploration of how objects and light gambol—bouncing, blocking, blinding. I am fascinated by the relationships between what is concrete and ephemeral; belief and doubt; skepticism and insecurity. I like patterns repeating and dissolving. Nothing is solved by clinging to any of it.
Special thanks to Camille for editing.