Reading Diary B: Ovid’s Metamorphoses I

“So may he himself love, and so may he fail to command what he loves!”

Narcissus was the story that stood out most to me in the second half of the Ovid’s Metamorphoses I unit. The story started off with Narcissus thinking he is better than almost anyone. He would talk down to people, thinking he was the best and everyone was underneath him. After a man shouted to the heavens in anger of Narcissus narcissism, the goddess of Nemesis heard his request. Narcissus finds a fountain thinking it’s an ordinary day but then he looked into the water. He saw a handsome man and he fell in love. Little did he know that he was just looking at his own reflection. He tried to reach for the male in the water by wrapping his arms around him or kissing him but then he would ‘disappear’. He stared at this reflection until he became so weak from the lack of food or water. Unable to bare the idea that this male could not speak to him or touch him, Narcissus cried as he lay down to die next to the fountain and turned into a flower.  This ending shows the transformation from man into a flower.

Reflections