the myth

Salvador Dalí - Transformation of Narcissus
Salvador Dalí - Transformation of Narcissus
John William Waterhouse - Echo and Narcissus
John William Waterhouse - Echo and Narcissus
Dancers Toon and Ève-Marie during filming

Narcissus is a beautiful young man who lives for the hunt. He had already made many hearts beat faster, but he doesn't want to know anything about love: he rejects everyone.

Echo is a nymph affected by a curse that makes it impossible for her to hold a conversation: she can only parrot others.

One day Echo sees the beautiful Narcissus while hunting in the mountains. She immediately falls in love and follows him wherever he goes. However, reasonable communication is impossible due to the curse, and Narcissus' obsession with himself. Narcissus rejects Echo, which is why she retreats into chilly, echoing caves where she completely fades away, leaving only her voice.

Narcissus gets little or nothing out of this, but his fate is not much better. A curse rests on him as well. All his life his parents knew to keep him away from mirrors, because of the prediction that they would be fatal to him. However, he comes to a sacred pond with crystal clear reflecting water. When he bent down to drink from it, he saw his own reflection and thought it was a spirit living in the pond. He is then so struck by the beauty of the image in the water that he keeps staring at it: he falls hopelessly in love with himself. However, every time he reaches out to embrace the image in the water, it disappears into the ripples, an action that is repeated time and time again. Narcissus has no choice but to repeat this hopeless dance and withers away through hunger, thirst and sorrow. Until finally, only a well-known flower remains of him, called narcissus, the first to give us hope and comfort after the winter...

The story of Echo and Narcissus is best known from Ovid, who transmitted this Greek myth in Latin poem form (Metamorphoses 3.341-510).

Source: Wikipedia