Spark Your Creativity With Dali’s Metamorphosis of Narcissus
An interplay of love, same-sex desire and death
Metamorphosis of Narcissus (1937) is Dali’s genius interpretation of the 2000-year-old Greek myth of Narcissus, recited by Ovid.
Here’s the story — Narcissus was a beautiful youth who loved himself. No, it wasn’t self-love.
It was self-obsession and absorption up to a limit where he fell in love with himself.
He dismissed love proposals. When a beautiful nymph Echo fell madly in love with him, he spurned her. But Echo’s love for Narcissus only grew.
Once while sitting near a lake, Narcissus was so consumed by his self-reflection that he tried to embrace himself.
Alas, he died of drowning!
Echo mourned over his body.
When Narcissus, looking one last time into the pool uttered, “Oh marvellous boy, I loved you in vain, farewell”, Echo too chorused, “Farewell.”
God immortalized Narcissus as the daffodil flower.
