Today I traipse through the origin of the flower name narcissus, but I wander a few word paths that diverge from that main route, chiefly to examine odd byways of vocabulary and myth. Canadians plunge fat bulbs deep into autumnal loam every September and Genus The genus Narcissus was named by Linnaeus from a figure in Greek mythology < Narkissos Greek, a beautiful boy in the old myths. The genus Narcissus comprises about forty, mostly European species. The horticultural forms have been crossed and recrossed for hundreds of years, and now number in the thousands of varieties and cultivars.
“Beauty Too Rich for Use, For Earth too Dear” Although Shakespeare puts those words into the mouth of Romeo when first he beholds young Juliet’s virgin glow (Act V, Scene 1, Romeo and Juliet), the words apply to the myth of Narkissos too. The passage boasts four of William Shakespeare’s best lines, in which the word music of his English flames like honeyed fire. Such mastery bears repeating. “O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright! Yes, that Shakespearean line could have been the motto of Narcissus. One Strand of the Narcissus Myth Narkissos was a Greek lad so handsome that he spurned the love of women and men. But, one sunny Hellenic afternoon, kneeling beside a lonely forest pool, the lad found at last his own true love—himself. Pertly prone on a downy moss pad and gazing at his reflected image in the sparse ripples of the pond, Narkissos murmured to himself, “What a cute little stud muffin I am! By Zeus! I’m way too beautiful to be defiled by concupiscent deities and randy godlets, manhandled by coarse charioteers or lustful ladies who want merely to use me as a sperm tube and then toss me back, depleted and bereft, on to the barren moss. Nobody’s ever going to flip up my chiton for a quickie at noon. I’m just too, too precious.” Nowadays, Narkissos would have made a perfect simpering shill in one of the more lurid advertisements for male cologne.
Echo and Narcissus by John William Waterhouse, oil on canvas, detail, 1903, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, England
Chiton Versus Tunic The short chiton, by the way, when worn by male children and slaves, was the ancient Greek equivalent of the brief tunic of casual Roman dress. The chiton or tunic was a very short, sometimes sleeveless shirt of wool or, during high Athenian summer, the chiton might have been made from a lighter, gauzy, translucent cotton material. Clowns in Greek and Roman comedies often wore chitons or tunics so short that their genitals were exposed for the audience to laugh at.
From a Roman mosaic, a slave cook named Junius wears a tunic.
Outrecuidance — Obscure Synonym for Narcissism One wants to avoid otiose sentences in which superfluous doublings like Narcissus’ narcissism must be referenced. Outrecuidance might help. Its pronunciation usually attempts to follow the French: ootruh-kwee-DANSE. This interesting verbal rarity was borrowed into English in the fifteenth century or before from a word attested in Old French by the 12th century, where outré meant ‘excessively beyond normal’ + the verb cuider meant ‘to display self-satisfaction or conceit.’ In 1819, Sir Walter Scott used it in his novel Ivanhoe: “It is full time… that the outrecuidance of these peasants should be restrained.”
Narkissos Again Moss-cushioned and recumbent on the pool’s ferny brim, Narkissos kept reaching to grasp his own reflection in the water, but each time he touched the surface, his image disappeared. The boy could not bring himself to leave the bank of the pool and so he stayed there, forgetting to eat, entranced by his own handsomeness — O fatal lingering! When eventually the vain boy expired, the Greek gods took Narkissos up into the supernal ethers of Olympus and metamorphosed him into a golden flower, in order that they might each spring enjoy his beauty. Note that I have omitted the Echo strand of the Narcissus myth. It was an addition to the earliest Narcissus stories and may be found on any site devoted to retelling Greek myths.
A detail of the so-called “Feathered Prince,” part of the Procession Fresco found in the palace at Knossos and dated to 1550 BCE. Now in the Herakleion Archaeological Museum on the island of Crete, the regal fellow is perhaps a Minoan priest parading in mid-ceremonial. On his head he proudly bears a chaplet of lilies spiked with peacock plumes.
Etymology of Narcissus The ancients thought that Narkissos’ name was related to a Greek word for stupor or stunnedness, narke, a noun that is the source of English words like narcolepsy, narcotic, and Nark Squad. The prime meaning of the noun’s antecedent, the Attic Greek verb form narkoun , was ‘to make numb, to deaden feeling in.’ In this reading of his name, Narkissos was “stunned” by his own gorgeousness. I think we have all observed a few Olympic swimmers who seem burdened with a similar malady, especially after springing forth, all fresh and lovely, from their anabolic steroid showers. My preferred motto for the Olympics has always been: “Let the injections begin!” I object to the title Olympics. Far apter would be: World Youth Drug Trials. But Greek personal and place names suffixed by -issos were borrowed from other languages, as -issos is not of Hellenic origin. So it seems likely this mythical figure first arose in the ancient Near East, and the Greeks borrowed the name and the story, and by folk etymology made it look as if it were related to narke. Orientalists have not so far found the foreign source of the word Narkissos.
Narcissism Havelock-Ellis and Sigmund Freud used narcissism to label an early stage of sexual development wherein our own bodies arouse erotic feelings in us. According to Freud, most of us outgrow this fixated period of intense self-love. Freud, of course, never sat beside the runway at a fashion show. But ancient peoples knew well the high price of physical hubris, the sin of pride in bodily appearance. It is a common insight of Greek tragedy. And no wonder twelve chapters of the biblical Book of Ecclesiastes are devoted to warnings about “vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”
The Plant Family of Narcissi Amaryllidaceae, the amaryllis family. In Greek myth, Amaryllis was a beautiful shepherdess in the pastoral poems of the third-century BCE Greek author Theocritus. Her story was borrowed into Latin poetry by Ovid and Virgil. Her name derives from a Greek verb amaryssein which means ‘to have sparkling eyes.’ Species The many, beautiful hybrids are widely available, but do look out for some of
Etymology of Daffodil Asphodel, the name of a narcissus frequently mentioned in ancient poetry, derived from asphodelos Greek ‘a lily.’ But during the rough and tumble of word borrowing from one language to another through history, plant names get tossed and jumbled. Thus asphodel first entered English texts as affodill. Then, somehow, it At first daffodil referred to the asphodel but then became a name for English narcissi species and remained the name for those species to this day.
Jonquil Jonquil entered English from Early French jonquille, Narcissus jonquilla. French borrowed the word from junquilla Spanish ‘little reed,’ named because of the rush-like leaves of many narcissi species. The Spanish word goes back to iuncus Latin ‘rush, reed.’
Unmanned Lads of Greek Myth Narkissos belongs to a small group of vaguely sexless flower-boys of Greek mythology: Hyacinthus, Adonis, Attis, Hermaphroditus and several more obscure prancing ephebes. These mythic namby-pambies were either denied normal male sexual function in their folk tales, through interference of goddesses or, more horribly, through self-castration. Those who study the historical and psychological underpinnings of Greek mythology suggest that these asexual boys hark back to a time of brutal matriarchy in early Greece, when queens ruled tribes, and men were mere ambulatory sperm-bags and hunters. The folk memory of this horrid era, when females ruled all of Hellas, lingered in the Greek mind. Male Hellenes who came after this dread era of gynarchy made certain that women never again ruled Greece. So say some scholars. Women became not only feared but vilified as baby-machines, preferably mute ones. Other classicists adduce these early matriarchies as one of the reasons for ancient Greek pederasty. For a book-length, scholarly treatment of the topic, see Greek Homosexuality updated and with a new postscript by K.J. Dover, published by Harvard University Press, 1989.
We ought to terminate this flamboyant narcissine extravaganza with William Wordsworth’s poem “The Daffodils.” But, remember, I don’t want anyone climbing up on the kitchen table and tossing poesies to the plumber. Such indulgence is not fitting, and it might lead to wanton tunic-lifting.
The Daffodils (1804) I wander’d lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the Milky Way, They stretch'd in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A poet could not but be gay, In such a jocund company: I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie In vacant or in pensive mood, They flash upon that inward eye Which is the bliss of solitude; And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.
William Wordsworth, 1770-1850
© 2009 William Gordon Casselman
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await a narcissine awakening. Whether dubbed daffodils, jonquils, paperwhites or trumpet-flowered narcissi, these heralds blow chrome-yellow fanfares that sound each spring the melting retreat of winter. 
the smaller Narcissus species offered for sale from time to time. Among my favourites is Narcissus poeticus or Pheasant’s Eye Narcissus with very fragrant, wavy-edged, white petals thinly margined in deep red. Narcissus minimus (Latin, very small) is among the smallest bulbed plants in the world, native to Asturia in the Spanish Pyrenees. One cultivar “Jack Snipe” is available early in the fall at garden centres. Try a dozen of these tiny beauties tucked into a nook beside your front door. 
acquired an initial /d/. The Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed. 1989) opines imperiously that “the initial d has not been satisfactorily accounted for.” Harrumph! Well, some of us who study words disagree. “The asphodel” in Middle Dutch was de affodil, borrowed into English a second time, where the Dutch definite article sounded to English ears as if it was part of the word and not the Dutch word the. That confusion and ignorance of Dutch produced the English form daffodil. It has taken many playful English forms through the years, such as daffodilly and daffydowndilly.
