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Echo and Narcissus

Narcissus, John William Waterhouse,
1903.

FOUNDATIONS

The Myth of Narcissus

A cautionary Classical tale
of solipsism and self-
obsession.

History Today | Published in History Today Volume 68

Issue 7 July 2018

Narcissus stares at his reflection, while his

rejected suitor, Echo, looks on. The son of
the river god Cephissus and the naiad, or
nymph, Liriope, it was said that Narcissus
would live to old age, if he never looked at
himself. He had gained many female
admirers, entranced by his beauty, but he
rejected them all. One of them, Echo, was
so upset by his rejection that she
withdrew from the world to waste away.
All that was left of her was a whisper. It
was heard by the goddess Nemesis, who,
in response, made Narcissus fall in love
with his own reflection, at which he stared
until he died. A narcissus flowered in his
absence.

The story of Echo and Narcissus is best

known from book three of Ovid’s
Metamorphoses, a Latin narrative poem in
15 parts which emerged around AD 8,
whose unifying theme is transformation.
It chronicled more than 250 Classical
myths and was a huge influence on Dante
and Shakespeare. Though its influence
waned after the Renaissance, it returned
to inspire numerous 20th-century works
of art and music, its warning of solipsism
and self-obsession especially pertinent in
an age of individualism.

John William Waterhouse was an English

painter, born in Rome, who moved within
the orbit of the Pre-Raphaelites, though
he was more accurately a neoclassicist. He
had a particular penchant for depicting
scenes from Greek and Roman mythology
in which young women featured – in 2018
his Hylas and the Nymphs (1896) was
removed from public display in the
Manchester Art Gallery to stimulate
conversation, purportedly, about social
attitudes to women. It has since been
returned to the public arena. His Echo and
Narcissus, a not entirely accurate
rendering of Ovid’s account, can be found
a little further west, in Liverpool’s Walker
Art Gallery.

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