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The figure of Narcissus had wandered down from classic times to modern times, from legend into literature, and thence into popular phrase, long before it entered into sexual psychology. I do not propose to trace these wanderings. It cannot even be said that they always help us to understand the scientific reincarnation of Narcissus. But it is worth while to note a few of the signposts on the road.
The history of Narcissus in classic times was long ago traced by Wieseler. He considered that Narcissus belonged to the Thra-cians, being specially associated with places that were their seats or closely connected with them, this being also supported by the relationship of Narcissus to Selene and Endymion who were specially honored among the Thracians. The myth thus, he believed, originated from the symbol, the kernel of the myth being nothing else than the history of the flower. Narcissus had a water-god as father because the flower grows by the water, and his mother was Leiriope because the flower is a lily. The name of the personification is the name of the being's symbol, and the name indicates the effects of frost, terror, syncope, death, these effects being attributed to the action of the plant. To the ancients generally Narcissus came to represent not only cold self-love but praiseworthy abstinence, while later some philosophers of the Platonic schools found in this figure a deep sense and a morality for life.1 But for the most part Narcissus continued to be, as commonly represented in ancient art, a beautiful nude youth by a pool, languishing for love of his own fair