Staggeringly exquisite… —Readers' Favorite A fascinating read... —BookBub Accessible and entertaining... —Armand D'Angour Echo and Narcissus I have long been fascinated by the myth of Echo and Narcissus, and may finally have cracked its meaning. First, let’s remind ourselves of the myth. In Ovid’s version, the nymph Echo falls in love with Narcissus, a youth of extraordinary beauty. As a child, Narcissus had been prophesied by Teiresias, the blind prophet of Thebes, to ‘live to a ripe old age, as long as he never knows himself’. One day, Echo followed Narcissus through the woods as he hunted for stags. She longed to speak to him but dared not utter the first word. Overhearing her footsteps, the youth cried out, ‘Who’s there?’—to which she responded, ‘Who’s there?’ When at last she revealed herself, she leapt to embrace Narcissus, but he scorned her and cast her off. Echo spent the rest of her days pining for Narcissus, and slowly withered away until there was nothing left of her but her voice. Some time after his encounter with Echo, Narcissus went to quench his thirst at a pool of water. Seeing his own image in the water, he fell in love with it. But each time he bent down to kiss it, it seemed to disappear. Narcissus grew ever more thirsty but would not leave or disturb the pool of water for fear of losing sight of his fine features. In the end, he died of thirst, and there, on that very spot, appeared the narcissus flower, with its bright face and bowed neck. So what could this myth mean? On one level, it is an admonition to treat others as we would ourself be treated—and in particular to be considerate in responding to the affections of others, which, as with Echo, are often so raw and visceral as to be existential. Poor Echo had no self and no being outside of Narcissus, and after being rejected by him ‘slowly withered away until there was nothing left of her but her voice’. Even her voice, the only thing that remained of her, was his rather than her own. On another level, the myth is a warning against vanity and self-love. Sometimes we get so caught up in our being, in our ego [Latin, ‘I am’], that we lose sight of the bigger picture and, as a result, pass over the beauty and bounty that is life. Paradoxically, by being too wrapped up in ourself, we actually restrict our range of perception and action and, ultimately, our potential as human beings. And so, in some sense, we kill ourself, like so many ambitious or self-centred people. Treating other people badly, as Narcissus did, is a sure sign of still being trapped in ourself. Teiresias prophesied that Narcissus would ‘live to a ripe old age, as long as he never knows himself ’, because to truly know ourself is also to know that there is nothing to know. Our self, our ego, is nothing but an illusion, nothing more substantial than the unstable reflection that Narcissus tried in vain to kiss. Ultimately, Narcissus’s ego boundaries dissolved in death, and he merged back into creation in the form of a flower—the daffodil, which, like us, flowers too early and too briefly, and often too brashly, if it flowers at all. Echo had not enough ego, and Narcissus far too much. The key is to find the right and dynamic equilibrium, to be secure in ourself and yet to be able to dissociate from the envelope that we happen to have been born into. In Greek myth, the hero has to die and travel through the underworld before re-emerging as a hero. He has to conquer himself, to die to himself, to become more than merely human. For nothing is harder than to come back from hell. There is much more to mental health than the mere absence of mental disorder. Today, I write about all the things that I was never taught. The new Ancient Wisdom series The best, most beautiful, and most powerful ideas of the Classical World. To be ignorant of the past is to be forever a child. For what is the time of man, lest it be interwoven with that memory of ancient things of a superior age? —Cicero The Meaning of Myth: With 12 Greek Myths Retold and Interpreted by a Psychiatrist The Gang of Three: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle Stoic Stories: Stoicism by Its Best Stories Indian Mythology and Philosophy Neel Burton Multi award-winning non-fiction author Dr Neel Burton FRSA is a psychiatrist, philosopher, and wine-lover who lives and teaches in Oxford, England. He is a Fellow of Green-Templeton College in the University of Oxford, and the winner of the Society of Authors' Richard Asher Prize, the British Medical Association's Young Authors' Award, and the Medical Journalists' Association Open Book Award. His work regularly features in the likes of Aeon and Psychology Today and has been translated into several languages. His books include: The Meaning of Madness: A Critical Guide to Mental Health and Illness Hide and Seek: The Psychology of Self-Deception Heaven and Hell: The Psychology of the Emotions For Better For Worse: Essays on Love, Marriage, and More Hypersanity: Thinking Beyond Thinking The Art of Failure: The Anti Self-Help Guide The Meaning of Myth: With 12 Greek Myths Retold and Interpreted by a Psychiatrist The Gang of Three: Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and more...
✔ Author(s): Neel Burton
✔ Title: The Meaning of Myth: With 12 Greek Myths Retold and Interpreted by a Psychiatrist (Ancient Wisdom)
✔ Rating : 4.4 out of 5 base on (158 reviews)
✔ ISBN-10: 191326016X
✔ Language: English
✔ Format ebook: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Audio, HTML and MOBI
✔ Device compatibles: Android, iOS, PC and Amazon Kindle
Readers' opinions about The Meaning of Myth by Neel Burton
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