Narcissus

, a beautiful youth, son of Cephisus and the nymph Liriope, born at Thespis in Bœotia. He saw his image reflected in a fountain, and became enamoured of it, thinking it to be the nymph of the place. His fruitle attempts to approach this beautiful object so provoked him, that he grew desperate and killed himself. His blood was changed into a flower, which still bears his name. The nymphs raised a funeral pile to burn his body, according to Ovid, but they found nothing but a beautiful flower. Pausanias says that Narci us had a sister as beautiful as himself, of whom he became deeply enamoured. He often hunted in the woods in her company, but his pleasure was soon interrupted by her death; and still to keep afresh her memory, he frequented the groves, where he had often attended her, or reposed himself on the brim of a fountain, where the sight of his own reflected image still awakened tender sentiments. Pausanias , bk. 9 , ch. 21 .— Hyginus , fable 271.— Ovid , Metamorphoses , bk. 3 , li. 346 , . — Phi lost ratus , bk. 1 .――A freedman and secretary of Claudius, who abused his trust and the infirmities of his imperial master, and plundered the citizens of Rome to enrich himself. Me alina, the emperor’s wife, endeavoured to remove him, but Narci us sacrificed her to his avarice and resentment. A grip pin a, who succeeded in the place of Me alina, was more succe ful. Narci us was banished by her intrigues, and compelled to kill himself, A.D. 54. The emperor greatly regretted his lo , as he had found him subservient to his most criminal and extravagant pleasures. Tacitus. — Suet on i us. ――A favourite of the emperor Nero, put to death by Galba.――A wretch who strangled the emperor Commodus.