064 Narcissus the first douchebag mortal

You ever wonder where the word narcissistic or narcissist came from? From the Greek Myth of Narcissus and Echo of course! It's a cautionary tale of vanity and being cruel to women  and of course features a metamorphosis because what Greek Myth is there without one.

However, before I talk about this story let me tell you a small story of a nymph named Echo. Echo was a mountain nymph with a natural ability at talking, so good was she at this that Zeus himself had her talk and amuse Hera while he went off to rape nymphs, mortals, and goddesses. Eventually Hera found out that Zeus was using the talkative nymph to distract her from her husband's escapades. Because of this Hera punished the chatty servant by taking away her voice; only allowing her to repeat the words of another person's shout. (It's not like her name means that now, that would just be silly)  Unable to speak freely, Echo fled from Olympus to woods of Greece and that is where Narcissus comes in to our story.

God damn I'm a sexy beast!

Now Narcissus was the son of the blue nymph Lirope who was captured by the river god Cephius and subsequently raped which resulted in a beautiful boy. Lirope was worried about her newly borne son's future, so she consulted the famed prophet Tiresias for advice. The old seer then told her that Narcissus "would live to a ripe old age, as long as he never knew himself." (FORESHADOWING!)

Zachary is the sexiest thing since Adonis! (God I'm being a dick to Echo)

Now with some background, how did these two meet? Well it was when Narcissus was hunting for stags in the woods where Echo lived in. As the beautiful youth stalked for stags, Echo stealthily stalked him throughout the forest, but was unable to call out to the young man. When Narcissus finally noticed the sounds of Echo's footsteps he called out, "Who's there?" Echo then responded, "Who's there?" This exchange went a lot like this:

Oh Johnny Bravo, how I love thee

Anyway back to the story, this continued for quite a while until Echo could not stand it any longer and decided to reveal herself to him and rushed over to embrace Narcissus. However, he pulled away from the nymph and vainly told her to leave him alone. (Damn that's cold) Narcissus then left the heartbroken Echo and continued on his way to hunt for stags.

Thus Echo spent the rest of her life in lonely brooks pining away for the love she
never knew, crying until all that was left was her voice. (Or turned into stone and an invisible Echo that haunts the Earth to this day.) Don't worry though that asshole Narcissus was going to get his.

Damn I'm pretty

You see the goddess of love Aphrodite (or in some variations the goddess of vengeance, Nemesis) saw what had happened to poor Echo and decided to punish the vain Narcissus. When stopping to get some water after hard work yet unable to find any quarry, the goddess in question enchanted the pool of water from where he was drinking so that he would fall in love with his reflection.

Eventually Narcissus realized he was in love with his own reflection,
became so utterly distraught and realized that there was no way to fulfill his love,
took out his hunting knife and stabbed himself through the heart. As the
blood drops fell to the ground they spawned the first growth of the Daffodil, also known as the Narcissus flower. So like any good Greek Myth the end result of some terrible tragedy or violent death resulted into this:

Oh what a pretty flower created by the death of a douchebag

You know? This story reminds me of another tragic tale of another handsome young man who met an unfortunate end and ended up a flower, that would be the story of Adonis. So for Moments in Greek Mythology this is Achillesforever6.