Tiresias, the blind soothsayer of Thebes, had foretold that the comely Narcissus would live as long as he could refrain from the sight of his own countenance,—
“But he, ignorant of his destiny,” says Claude Mignault, “grew so desperately in love with his own image seen in a fountain, that he miserably wasted away, and was changed into the flower of his own name, which is called Narce, and means drowsiness or infatuation, because the smell of the Narcissus affects the head.”
However that may be, Alciatus, edition Antwerp, 1581, exhibits the youth surveying his features in a running stream; the flower is behind him, and in the distance is Tiresias pronouncing his doom. “Self love” is the motto.
Φιλαυτία
Emblema lxix.
Alciat, 1581.
Qvod nimium tua forma tibi Narciſſe placebat,
In florem, & noti eſt verſa ſtuporis olus.