DIONYSUS, PAN, ECHO, AND NARCISSUS 303will bring an end to my misery. I only wish that he whom I cherish could live
a longer time. As it is, we two who are one in life shall die together!"
He finished speaking and, sick with longing, turned back again to his own
reflection. His tears disturbed the waters and caused the image in the pool to
grow less distinct. When he saw it disappearing he screamed: "Where are you
going? Stay here, do not desert me, your lover. I cannot touch you—let me look
at you, give me this nourishment at least in my misery and madness." As he
grieved, he tore his garment in its upper part and beat his bare chest with his
marble-white hands. And his chest when struck took on a rosy tinge, as apples
usually have their whiteness streaked with red, or grapes in various clusters
when not yet ripe are stained with purple. As soon as he beheld himself thus in
the water that was once again calm, he could endure it no further; but, as yel-
low wax is wont to melt under the touch of fire and the gentle frost under the
warmth of the sun, so he was weakened and destroyed by love, gradually be-
ing consumed in its hidden flame. His beautiful complexion, white touched with
red, no longer remained nor his youthful strength, nor all that he had formerly
looked upon with such pleasure. Not even his body, which Echo had once loved,
was left.
When Echo saw what he had become, she felt sorry, even though she had
been angry and resentful. Each time that the poor boy exclaimed "Alas," she re-
peated in return an echoing "Alas." And as he struck his shoulders with his
hands, she gave back too the same sounds of his grief. This was his last cry as
he gazed into the familiar waters: "Alas for the boy I cherished in vain!" The
place repeated these very same words. And when he said "Farewell," Echo re-
peated "Farewell" too. He relaxed his weary head on the green grass; night closed
those eyes that had so admired the beauty of their owner. Then too, after he had
been received in the home of the dead below, he gazed at himself in the waters
of the Styx. His sister Naiads wept and cut off their hair and offered it to their
brother; the Dryads wept, and Echo sounded their laments. Now the pyre and
streaming torches and the bier were being prepared, but the corpse was nowhere
to be seen. They found instead a yellow flower with a circle of white petals in its
center.NARCISSISMThis tragic story of self-love and self-destruction has cast a particularly potent
spell upon subsequent literature and thought, not least of all because of Ovid's
perceptive and moving tale. How typical of classical poetry is Ovid's insight:
the fact that a male lover's prayer for just retribution is answered defines the
homoerotic nature of Narcissus' self-love and self-destruction.^26 We do believe
that Ovid intends us to understand that a male lover (aliquis) was rejected, be-
cause then Narcissus' affliction becomes so ironic and so just: "Let the punish-
ment fit the crime." The ominous words of Tiresias predict the tragedy in a fas-
cinating variation of the most Greek of themes, "Know thyself," preached by
Apollo and learned by Oedipus and Socrates. "When his mother inquired if
Narcissus would live to a ripe old age, the seer Tiresias answered, "Yes, if he