Commentary on Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.339-510: Echo and Narcissus

418 eodem: with vultu, emphasizing N.’s continuous fascination with his own face.

419 Pario…marmore: “Parian marble,” a flawless, white stone quarried during the Classical period.  N’s skin is pure, without blemish, and highly prized.  O. here begins “transforming” N. into an object.

420–423 O. only describes N.’s appearance above the shoulders, a departure from his usual lingering on a sexually desired woman’s curves. N. is transfixed by his facial beauty. 

421–423 polysyndeton emphasizes the number of visual delights N. finds in himself 

421 dignos…dignos: + abl.

422 eburnea: “ivory,” like Pario marmore, shows N. as an object of the natural world rather than flesh and blood, thereby foreshadowing his final transformation into a daffodil.

425–6 se cupit inprudens: N. is grammatically both the subject of cupit and se, its object, and thus is at once fetishizer and fetishized, an effect heightened by rising tricolon of contrasting verbs, probat/-tur, petit/-tur, and accendit/ardet, that follows.

427 inrita: “empty”

427-8 quotiens...quotiens: repetition of “how many” underscores N.’s frustration.  N.’s arms should disturb his reflection and alert him to the fact that the object of his desire is in fact his own reflection, but, rather than his arms, at 475-6, lacrimis turbavit...lacu est, ramping up the pathos of N.’s predicament.

430 videat: subjunctive in rel. clause of characteristic 

432 credule, quid frustra simulacra fugacia captas?: rhetorical question posed by O.’s poet-narrator, addressing N. as “foolish.”  He scolds N. for attempting to seize a “fleeing image,” recalling the many “fleeing images” of women chased after by gods, c.f. e.g., Syrinx by Pan and Daphne by Apollo. 

frustra: take adverbially with captas, “in vain”

433 quod...quod: acc. objects referring to N.’s reflection.  Note that their neuter grammatical gender differs from N.’s own masculine gender, suggesting a difference in identity between N. and his reflection. 

avertere: present passive imperative

 

434 quam: antecedent of umbra

imaginis umbra: here, umbra is “shadow,” but commonly means “shade” or “ghost.”  O.’s use here highlights the total emptiness of the reflection, imaginis.

435 nil habet ista sui; tecum: O.’s poet-narrator states that N.’s self is not actually in his reflection; the image is in fact empty, just as are N.’s efforts to seize it. sui and tecum contrast with each other, perhaps misleadingly, since N. “himself” is “you,” his reflection.

436 discedet: repetition of discedo emphasizes N.’s inability to leave the pool.