Narcissus. 
(SELF-LOVE.) 
T HE white or poetical Narcissus is aptly adopted as the 
florigraphical sign of egotism , inasmuch as, according to 
the mythologists, it owes its origin to a beautiful youth of 
Boeotia, of whom it had been foretold that he should live 
happily until he beheld his own face. One day, when heated 
by the chase. Narcissus sought to quench his thirst in a stream; 
in so doing he beheld the reflection of his own lovely features, 
of which he immediately became enamoured, and, doubtless 
as a retribution for having slighted the charms of the nymph 
Echo, the conceited lad was spellbound to the spot, where he 
pined to death, and was metamorphosed by the gods into the 
flower that now bears his name. When the Naiads had la- 
mentingly prepared the funeral pile for the beautiful youth, 
his body was missing; 
“ Instead whereof a yellow flower was found, 
With tufts of white about the button crown’d;” 
and ever since is seen 
“ Narcissus fair, 
As o’er the fabled fountain hanging still.” 
The poetic Narcissus has a snow-white flower, with a yellow 
cup in the centre, fringed on the border with a brilliant crimson 
circlet. It is sweet-scented, and flowers in May. The cup in 
the centre is supposed to contain the tears of the ill-fated 
Narcissus. Keats terms it “a lovely flower:” 
“ A meek and forlorn flower, with nought of pride.” 
And Shelley gives it yet kinder and more flattering words in 
his description of the various flowers growing with the sensi¬ 
tive plant: in that terrestrial garden grew 
“ The pied wind flowers and the tulip tall, 
And Narcissi, the fairest among them all, 
Who gaze on their eyes in the stream’s recess, 
Till they die at their own dear loveliness.” 
