THE MYTH OF NARCISSUS: A PHYLOGENETIC INTERPRETATION
by D. Frigoli, L. Giannelli, G. Colangelo

The approach to mythological studies, on an exegetical level, has followed two main directions. The former, defined as reductive hermeneutics, interprets both myths and symbols as structural epiphenomena of facts, pertinent to the social or unconscious spheres, always mechanically determined in their connections. The latter, defined as innovatory hermeneutics, amplifies the sense of symbols and of myths, avoiding limiting them to the pure semeiotic interpretation but instead, introducing an anagogical meaning through the reproposal of analogical contents.
Reductive hermeneutics (1) as for instance brought forward by Freud, Lévi - Strauss, Dumézil, Malinowski, Lévy - Bruhl, Mauss etc… demythicizes myths and symbols. Bringing their significance up to date and making them topical, this interpretation follows an analytical and simpler, almost algebrical logic and ends up by withering the heuristic potentialities proper to symbols, turning their eschatological reminiscences into a mere game of combinatorial mechanics. On the other hand, innovatory hermeneutics, considered by Heidegger, Van der Leuw, Eliade, Jung, Bachelard etc... re-evaluates symbols and myths, both catching all of their innumerable redundancies and re-reading their multiple meanings: this way it accomplishes an epiphany of the mystery unrolled through the transformation of the enquiring conscience itself.
It is however unquestionable that both interpretations may be exposed to some risks: on one side, reductive hermeneutics might tend towards an excessive materialisation of myths and symbols, whose creative signifiers end by being irremediably lost. On the other side, innovatory hermeneutics could provoke an excessive proliferation of significances, owing to which the figurative power of images, allegories or symbols might lead to a more and more evanescent imaginativeness, provided by an exclusively subjective validity, never linked to any collective reference. Without presumptively refusing either of the two interpretations, but in the attempt of making both of them converge into one vision, which might at the same time epitomize the formal and structural groundwork with the kaleidoscopically dynamic basis of imaginativeness, the new outcoming hermeneutics could lead to interesting developments in research.
We have defined the inspiring conception of this style as an integral psychosomatic approach to myths and symbols (2), because we wanted, through this definition, to underline its energetic, vital aspect, which is also confirmed by the etymological analysis of the word 'inte-ger', which can be derived from 'intus-gerere', which means 'to generate inside'. It is in this perspective that the myth can be considered as a process of psychic conversion of psychoid primitive energy, elaborated by the activity of archetypes and made accessible to conscience through psychic images, transformed and assimilated as symbols and later projected in anthropological constructions with collective effectiveness. In other words, each myth represents an energetic transformation of libido, thanks to which the numinous world of the obscure forces of instinctual impulses is gradually condensed into primordial images, real mnestic precipitates, with the purpose of converting the primeval energy of a given impulse into its corresponding psychic representation.
This transformation determines an extremely important passage in the evolution of conscience: the need of a psychic 'return to the centre' of primitive sensations consequently leads to the birth of a corresponding centralization of organic substrates - central nervous system and cerebral cortex -, which are the necessary structural organizers both of internal physiological stimuli and of external sensorial ones. It is for this reason that E. Neumann affirms that a world deprived of images, like the instinctual one proper to inferior animals, even if living cannot be regarded as properly psychic owing to its 'reflecting' structure: in fact it "responds to stimuli with unconscious actions, without a central organ representative of stimulus and action. It is only through the development of centralization, which builds wider and wider systems belonging to a higher and higher degree, we can reach a representation of the world in images and an organ capable of perceiving this universe full of images-representation" (3): conscience and brain.
This way, the central nervous system and the conscience are to be depicted as the phylogenetic results of a gradual process, centralizing physiological impulses and the primeval corresponding images; on their inside will be present all the vital energy of organic, original processes and of archaic, psychic representations. For instance, "the psychic symbolical image 'fire', includes both elements belonging to the external experience of fire, such as something red and hot with a burning quality, and 'internal' elements. Together with its perceptive quality of colour, red also bears in itself the emotive components of heat, regarded as an inner process of excitation. Fiery, hot, ardent, flaming are images belonging more to the emotional sphere than to the perceptive one. That's why we believe that the physical process of oxidation called fire is experimented projecting onto the external world images deriving from the internal psychic area, while we think that our experience of the external world cannot be laid over the inner world… It is only through the course of human development, that the object is gradually and very slowly freed from the endless projections wrapping it up and deriving from the inner psychic area." (4).
On these bases we can postulate that in myths and in symbols is present a vital hermeneutics logic, which is the expression of the phylogenetic evolution both of physiological functions and of the psychic analogous ones. This is why the hermeneutics we are dealing with can be defined as 'integral', its function being the examination of myths and symbols beyond any conceptual, rational determinism: owing to this interpretation we will be able to display all the vital reminiscences, real phylogenetical 'ciphers', the comprehension of which will constitute the indispensable premise for the achievement of a science of symbols, or symbolical science. Such symbolics will assume not only an extensive interpretative work, with the aim of tying together the various iconographical aspects of a symbol (derived from the study of the two hermeneutics already dealt with), but above all it will discover the vital signifiers which, throughout the evolution of man's conscience, represent all operative archetypal 'qualities'. It is following this perspective that we have decided to take into consideration the myth of Narcissus, often dealt with in the psychological field (5), in order to underline, in the iconographical passages of the myth, components generally overlooked when interpreted with exclusively psychological criteria.
Through this widened hermeneutics, we will underline the relationships between the sphere of archaic images and the corresponding basic physiological functions. According to the version handed down by Ovid (6), Narcissus was born in Beotia, from the nymph Liriope, violated by Cefiso (the god of the river), after she had been wrapped in his watery spires. The blind seer Tyresias predicted to Liriope that Narcissus would live a long time, provided he would never get to know himself. Narcissus was very handsome and anybody would fall in love with him. When he was sixteen he had already rejected a great number of lovers of both sexes, since he was superbly jealous of his own beauty. Among his many wooers there was a nymph, Echo, who was only allowed to use her voice to repeat the last words uttered by someone else: it was the punishment for having distracted Era with long talks, in order to let the wood nymphs (Zeus' lovers) flee from the angry, jealous goddess. Echo, rejected and despised by Narcissus, led the rest of her life secretly following her beloved, hopelessly in love until, worn out with sadness and seized by despair she disappeared; what remained of her was nothing but her voice, which still nowadays is heard among the mountains, repeating the last words uttered by men. Some of the rejected wooers, instead, called upon Nemesis for a just punishment against Narcissus.
And this is why one day the handsome god, wandering through a forest, happened to come beside a clear, pure, silvery pond uncontaminated by herds, sheep, shepherds, birds, animals or even fallen branches; this spring was in the middle of such a thick wood that not even sun rays had ever touched it. Narcissus approached the pond in order to quench his thirst, and when he saw his image mirrored by the water, he fell in love with it. At first he desperately tried to embrace the young boy in front of him, but once recognized his own reflected image, he stood still, contemplating it, pining away and uttering lamentations and sighs only heard and answered by Echo, hidden in the wood. It was there that the nymphs Nayads and Dryads found him, dead of consumption: they had not the time to plan his funerals since he suddenly turned into the flower that still now bears his name. Let us now go deep in the analysis of Ovid's mythical narration, without overlooking the particular aspects that only 'reductive' hermeneutics might regard as mere conceptual accessories whirling around the central theme: the destructive love for oneself. In this connection, Narcissus' conception and birth, which were owed to the insinuating violence exercised by Cefiso (the river) on the water nymph Liriope, underline that Narcissus is the son of the unconscious, primeval and uroborical forces symbolized by the metaphor of 'waters'. The unconscious nature of the origin of Narcissus is confirmed in the choice of his name, deriving from the Greek "narke'", which means torpor, stiffness (7). In the behaviour of this young god, who despises any love proposal and is only keen on hunting, we can recognize the figure of the adolescent who is trying to rebel against the devouring attraction of the Great Mother, symbolical figure of the first process not yet brought to conscience, of the individuation of his ego, and of the concept of differentiation from primeval, undistinguished unconscious.
In this sense, we would like to quote E. Neumann's words (8): "The aversion against the 'Great Mother', as the expression of centralization is clear in the figures of Narcissus, Penteos and Hippolite…. In Narcissus, who refuses to love and in the end desperately falls in love for his own image, the orientation towards oneself and the detachment from the devouring object thirsting for love, are quite clear…Narcissus' ego, who wants to avoid the power of the unconscious, mirroring himself in his own reflection, succumbs to a catastrophic love for himself". Furthermore, we must not forget that the narration takes place when Narcissus is sixteen years old, that is when he has just entered his puberty, the moment when in Rome, for instance, young boys were given the virile toga. This detail cannot be casual, if it is true that the individuation process of the ego starts and becomes manifest, using Neumann's words (9), "in the puberty of humanity, in the same way as in every single, individual conscience".
A very important element in this myth is represented by Echo, the nymph. Among such a great number of rejected wooers, she is the one who deeply falls in love for Narcissus, always following him throughout his painful path. The Greek term 'echo', indicating both the nymph name and the acoustic phenomenon, is a direct variation of the word 'eche', which means 'loud, roaring noise', with an acceptation of confusion and with a much less human meaning than other words defining sounds and voices such as 'ops', 'fone' and 'fhtongos'. Actually Echo is given a very primordial and unaware use of her voice, which in nature may be assimilated to an undistinguished sound, not yet bound to a specific 'form', while in the human world it could be compared to the so-called lallation of infants, capable of uttering any sound (also having nothing to do with their mother tongue) with no phonetic value, or without any linguistic awareness. Owing to her love for Narcissus, the nymph Echo, as primeval sonorous entity, slowly consumes herself as far as becoming her individualized 'form', that is pure sound. What is to be vigorously underlined is that, contrary to common opinion, Echo's metamorphosis is not negative at all. We know, in fact, that nymphs were fated to perish together with the natural element they were attributed to (plant, spring, etc.), therefore lacking an autonomous life of their own.
Echo, by turning into sound, conquers her own individuality which, on the phylogenetical plan, is translated into immortality as a 'function' in action. Symbolically speaking, this means that in the metaphor of Echo we are facing the transformation of a 'form-function' which, leaving its primitive uroboric state, in which it existed as a latent, unconscious potentiality, has reached its definite connotation, expressed by the function in progress. It is obvious that such a transformation is symbolically followed by the progressive loss of materiality in favour of the appearance of an energetic functional component, already present in the previous uroboric form. In the case of Echo, the 'symbolic' form of the nymph is to disappear as 'latent' sonorous aspect, in order to arise its individuated function, revealed by the single 'sound' that she will be expressing in the future. However, although the role of sound is so important in the structure of the myth of Narcissus, its interpretative analysis is not limited to this observation. In fact, the protagonist of the mythical tale gets in touch with his own self only when he is mirrored in the spring; this symbolically means that Narcissus is dominated by the unconscious exigency of recovering the function of vision. Tyresias (blind seer, which means endowed with unconscious sight) had prophesied that Narcissus would have lived long if he had not known his own self.
And Narcissus becomes aware of himself only when he, for the first time, looks at his image mirrored in the waters of a spring: this pond, according to Ovid's words, reveals all the characteristics of a 'numinous' place, which can be assimilated, in its peculiarities, to an aspect of the unconscious. It is in fact placed in the middle of a 'wood' so thick that sunrays cannot filter through it and touch the soil, where no man or animal has ever been, and where nothing, not even fallen leaves or dry branches, have ever muddied the uncontaminated purity of its waters; this description confirms that we are dealing with a modality of the collective unconscious, which has never come in touch with any individuated form. In this aspect of the myth of Narcissus, to use E. Neumann's words (9) "It is not enough to put in evidence only the importance of one's own body and the love man feels for it. The tendency of an egocentric conscience is becoming aware of itself, the tendency of self-consciousness and of reflection at looking at oneself in the mirror is a necessary and essential trait of this level. It is here that the formation and the recognition of oneself, processes through which the human conscience reaches awareness, decisively start to develop". The meaning of self observation of a conscience on its way towards self-recognition also finds a confirmation in the etymologic analysis of the word mirror, in Greek kàtoptron, composed of the preposition 'katà', the principal meaning of which is 'down' or 'under' and of the root 'op', which means 'to see'. In all mythical symbolism and iconography, all that is placed underneath, literally what is infernal, represents the more or less deeply unconscious and obscure inner life. However, among the many young people who try to rebel against the uroboric power of the Great Mother, Narcissus is one of the most evolved. In fact, thanks to his pre-conscious sentiment of love, he can be turned into a flower, while the analogous figures of Hippolite and Penteus (10), despising any form of sentiment, end by wretchedly dying, after being dismembered and massacred.
This way Narcissus lets us symbolically perceive one of the evolutionary processes of conscience individuation and its corresponding path of biological evolution in accordance with the above quoted integral hermeneutics, concept which will be thoroughly investigated further on. We must also remark that, according to Ovid's tale, Narcissus faces his doom and transformation owing to Nemesis' will. She was the goddess of fatal vengeance, of distributive justice, her name is linked to the verb 'némo'', 'I distribute' and to the name 'nòmos', 'law' (with the original meaning of the portion of pasture given to each one), also connected to the Latin words numerus and nomen. It is thus evident that the death and metamorphosis of Narcissus are due to a measured and targeted natural law, which is to be compared to the evolutionary phylogenetical law. More than that, the name of narcissus' mother, the nymph Liriope, means 'voice' (òps- ) of the lily (léirion- ), including in nuce and almost for a law of pre-determination, two of the essential characteristics of Narcissus' fate: the sound and the flower. At this point it is convenient to quote also Pausania's version of the myth, given in the ninth book of his Research on Greece (11), a different, though complementary version of Ovid's one. According to Pausania, Narcissus had a twin sister, looking exactly like him both in aspect and in adornments, for whom Narcissus had fallen in love.
When she died, the young boy, longing to see her again, always used to go to the Beotian spring, which was then named after him. And there, looking at his mirrored image, he found relief to his sorrow, in the illusion of seeing his lost sister's face. The meaning of this version is not in contradiction with the more traditional one in Ovid's 'Metamorphosis', but it strengthens it. In fact, on the plan of the psychological evolution of the conscience, the process of individuation needs an indispensable step: the recognition of one's ego as an entity different from the world under observation. In this evolutionary direction, the distinction between Narcissus and his own symmetrical feminine part represented by his sister (the reflection of the uroboric world of the Great Mother), reminds us that the separation from the uroboric world can only take place thanks to the emerging of a male figure in opposition, as sexual direction, to the original feminine one. Therefore Narcissus, in his inability to fulfil this process, remains 'fixed' in the contemplation of the feminine image of the Great Mother. That's why the myth of Narcissus, both in Ovid and in Pausania, seems to be indicating the evolutionary path of the birth of individual conscience, starting from the uroboric unconscious which, in its most primitive version is contemporarily male and female. This condition, according to E. Neumann (12), is ancestrally expressed "in the evident subordination of the Male to the Female: in the end it always represents - as lover and man - her son.
Beyond this conception, the Male, as phallic-generator, becomes the instrument of fertility which, at its best, spiritually speaking, is experienced as a transpersonal and overpersonal instrument". This fertility, hinted at by E. Neumann, is the indispensable premise for providing the energetic total potentiality of the uroboric unconscious with a developing direction towards one's own individual awareness, symbolically expressed by the presence of male figures, luminous sons of the energetic transformation taking place in the maternal uroborus. The luminous son is at the same time 'fire' and 'light', which means that it remains as 'fire' in the becoming existential plan of the uroboric Female, while it is fulfilled as 'light' (conscience) in its possibility of dissipating the obscurity of the Feminine-Nocturnal, at last enlightened in its conscious direction. That's why E. Neumann can rightly affirm that " the intense secret of this event consists in the fact that the Feminine recognizes in herself the generating light as her own son; the mystery of the incest between mother and son permeates the secret-perturbing background of such experience of the Female".(13) It is on these conceptual bases that we can understand the birth of the divine son, found in various myths, through the forms of Horus, Helios, Dyonisos, Aion or Christ.
In the case of Narcissus, he cannot yet be considered the fully realized luminous-son, even if some mythological peculiarities like his birth, his fascinating power, his initial virility, etc. may direct him towards a metaphorical transformational figure oriented to the birth of an individualized conscience. Narcissus represents one of the significant steps of the transformational process of our uroboric conscience, since it only realizes the individuation of sound, still leaving unconscious the function of sight. On the other hand we know that a conscience can only be individuated on condition that a full realisation of the whole range of its implicit sensoriality should be completed. On the ontogenical plan this means the capacity of automatically and outwardly fulfilling the programme of sensorially and perceptively getting in touch with the external world. In other words, we have seen that the myth of Narcissus expresses a precise moment of the sensorial birth of the individual conscience, since it hermeneutically recuperates our metasymbols, those organic unconscious substrates that in a vital logic can be considered as responsible of the primeval imagoes projected as a coherent group of representations in the universal motives of the myth. This conception enables us to fulfil the aim of throwing a breach of comprehension on the primitive psychoid field, which still sees psyche closely confused with the organic world of instincts.
As I. Progroff reminds us, in the psychoid or uroboric unconscious the mind "still works in direct connection to the reign of nature thus constituting the aspect of human organism which can be most directly experimented as part of nature."(14) This means that the development of a psychoid is strictly similar to what we define as phylogenesis which, as E.H. Haeckel reminds us, is recapitulated in the most important steps of human ontogenesis. Thus addressing human embryology and the vital analogies that connect its world to the natural one, indirectly we are provided a trace to study purposedly the correlation between the primeval manifestations of the uroboric psychoid with the psychological productions of myths, revisited through a meta-symbolic key, deprived of an exclusively psychological intrerpretation. The kind of evolutionary gnoseology we are thus stating, in contrast to the many philosophical theories of knowledge, aims at investigating the structure of a myth from the point of view of its phylogenetical history, through an integral hermeneutic method which may at the same time sum up both its biological and its psychological referents. In this connection, if we examine the myth of Narcissus, underlining the correlations between the phylogenetic dimension and the structural metaphors of the myth, we can work out some interesting observations. Above all, as affirmed by embryology, the development of the eye starts to manifest in the embryo at a precise stage of its growth (22 days), and it is almost contemporary to the development of the ear. Both developing organs, anyway, make their appearance after the heart has started to beat.
Within the neural plies of the cephalic extremity of the embryo two marks, or optical pits, appear: they are later outpouched and form a couple of cave diverticulums, called optic vesicles; while these latter vesicles grow laterally, their internal extremities are expounded and their connections with the prosocoele are narrowed, forming the optic stalks. At the same time the ectodermic coat, above the optic vesicles gets thicker, forming the lentogenous placodes. The region of each placode is rapidly ensheathed, originating a fovea of the lens. The margin of these hollows gradually approach each other forming the two lens vesicles. While the lens vesicles are being developed, eyecups start their intussusception, forming the double wall optic cups. Gradually the eyecups are located inside the optic cups. On the inferior surface of the optic cups linear fissures are developed, which are called foetal fissures or fissurae choroideae; blood vessels are then developed in the mesencephalon covering this fissure. Without going deeply into further details about the development of all the single parts constituting the eye, it is enough to remember that the retina, indispensable formation for the vision process, is completely developed only towards the birth, with the exception of the central fovea. "At the end of gestation, the process of optic nerve fiber myelination has already reached the optic disk.

Throughout the first four months of life, foveolar retinal receptors are differentiated, and the development of the eye is substantially completed." (15) Concerning the statoacoustic organs, the inner ear is the first to turn up in the embryo. At the beginning of the fourth week appears a thickened area in the coating ectoderm on each side of the developing rhombencephalon: it is called auditory placode. "Each placode is soon ensheathed and inserted beneath the coating ectoderm in the underlying mesenchyme, forming the otic pit. The pit margins are joined, in order to form, later, the membranous labyrinth."(16)

From the paries medialis of the auditory vesicle, the aqueductus vestibuli and the endolymphatic sac will be originated. At this point, in each otocyst we can distinguish two parts: a dorsal one, called pars utriculi and a ventral one , called sectio sacculi. From the pars utriculi will originate the canalis semicircularis, the utricle and the sacculus, responsible of the organon auditus, while from the ventral sectio will be formed the cochlea and the spiral organ, whose morphogenesis will be over by the 70th day of pregnancy. The formation of nerve fibers in the spiral organ are already more or less completed by the 5th month of pregnancy, as it happens with the other fundamental structures both of the middle and of the external ear. "At birth, the middle ear cavities will be filled with air through the eustachian tube", (17) thus allowing, with the working ossicula, the whole transmission of vibrations to the internal ear. As we have shown, it is evident that, while hearing goes through a complete development before birth, the visual function is completed and becomes perfect only during the first months of life.
All that has been sofar analyzed is in accordance with our interpretation of the myth: Narcissus, symbol of the 'visual' function of the conscience emerging from the uroboric unconscious, will complete his functional individuation only after his birth. Psychologically, birth can be considered as the end of the phylogenesis of our conscience and the beginning of its ontogenesis; this means that the visual function, in order to be thoroughly developed, will need a vital 'field' organized by other sensorial functions perfectly working in their energetic output. This way, sight will be allowed to play its synthetic role, much more evolved than the other more primitive senses. This is the reason why, in the myth of Narcissus, such importance is given to Echo, the nymph; she symbolizes the birth of the primeval hearing function of conscience, which is actually completed in itself, before the birth of the ego. In the neurophysiological developments of the mind, it is really through 'sound' that we can circumscribe the psychical energetic field, fundamental basis for the further settlements of a newborn child's sensorial experiences. In absence of 'sound', regarded as the gestalt synthesis of the internal perceptions of both cardiac and maternal rhythm, the foetus cannot develop his own conscience. In fact, as psychosomatic reminds us, movements made by organs or apparatuses in process of formation leave in the foetus a sonorous trace.
Even if not audible, owing to its vibrating at a more or less fast frequency, it will be sedimented in the phylogenetic memory of each being. Those 'sounds' are the expression of the silent formation of the organs of our body and their rhythm and cadence will be directly proportional to the genetic evolution of the entire physical and cosmological universe. It is in fact true that each individual 'sound', being the oscillation of organic matter, will feel and experience the corresponding macrocosmic vibration accompanying it in the course of its genesis. That's why in Hindu schools it is explained that the oldest mantras are pre-linguistic primordial sounds "influencing our behaviours, our moods, our minds." (18) If Echo is the otic vesicle, completed during the foetal gestation, Narcissus is the optic cup of the embryo throughout its development until birth, which means before the retina may allow a perception of the external world: it is evident that this process favours the indispensable distinction between what is 'outside' and what is 'inside'. Hence the myth of Narcissus symbolizes a precise functional moment of detachment of the individual conscience from the totipotential uroborus. Following the integral hermeneutics, such detachment can take place only when the so-called 'sonorous function' has generated, in the energetic field of the psychoid, the 'necessity ' of an organ capable of perceiving it; that organ will be represented by the hearing function of the ear.
As a consequence it is evident that 'sonority', together with other sensorial and perceptive potentialities, is unconscious in the psychoid; its awareness will take place only owing to the creation of the energetic fluctuations necessary for the generation of an individualized 'vital field': in our contest, hearing. (Echo falls in love for Narcissus). When this 'sonorous function' is inscribed in organic matter, it undergoes a great many transformations, thus generating the various hearing apparatuses, peculiar to each single being of the phylogenetic chain (Echo dies pining away from love). By the progressive acquisition of such function, synchronous to the others accompanying the foetal development, in embryonal tissues we will see that an energetic field, targeted towards phylogenesis, is gradually being organized; in the course of this preparation, it will be successively integrated with more synthetic and elaborated functions, such as sight, for instance. On the psychological plan we are faced with the same behaviour: the psychoid, proceeding in its evolutionary process towards its own individualization (conscience), at first will have to reach a step in which the 'sonorous function' will be completed ( the otocyst symbolized by Echo), while the visual one will be fully developed later (the optic cup represented by Narcissus).
Narcissus, however, having not yet reached the function of 'aware sight', cannot produce the eye complete in all of its parts; in fact he is still absorbed in the vision of his own image, which shows his incapability at detaching his individuality from the totipotential psychoid. In other words Narcissus, as the phylogenetic metaphor of an organ formation, still remains in the psychoid unconscious, the psycho-organic area of conscience formation, that in the animal can be assimilated to his gestatorial phase. It is only at birth that the conscience definitively abandons the psychoid field, affirming itself as selfgenesis: this is why the myth shows us how, at Narcissus' death there is the birth of the corresponding flower, symbolically representative of the complete acquisition of his own individuality.
It is thus evident that, if Narcissus is the optic cup, his flower is there to show us the finally completed visual function, while his death will mark the passage from intrauterine life and birth: it is in this phase that the optic cup concludes its formation with the retina. Regarding those vital analogies and in order to avoid the easy criticism of a scientific mentality just attributing to myths purely psychological or anthropological considerations, we should try to observe a bulb of narcissus sectioned in its sagittal direction: we will see that the disposition of the internal lamelles reminds us of the analogous structure of the eye of a human embryo, as it appears at the microscope. Is it by chance? And why did then the ancients, to cure ear diseases, recur to the balsamic ointment of chaeronea, distilled from the bulb of the narcissus? They did not use it as a cure for eyes, since Narcissus only represents the partial visual function, not yet complete sight. This is the reason why this bulb cannot be fit for curing the diseases of the organ to which it refers, since it is not yet fully developed but its function is still in progress; on the contrary it will be perfectly efficacious in the cure of hearing, the fully developed function.
To conclude, it is evident that the myth of Narcissus hides a number of meanings which go far beyond the mere psychoanalytical Freudian interpretation, which limits itself to underlining just the aspect of 'oceanic pleasure': an immediate discharge of unconscious tensions representing the analogic expression of the libidinal function of Narcissus with his own image. We all know that a myth represents the concretization of unconscious thought processes connected to the becoming of the phylogenetic evolution of vital functions: de facto the hermeneutics of this myth shows us a precise passage in the phylogenetic evolution of the psychoid, to reach more and more evolved stages of what we call conscience.

BIBLIOGRAPHY and NOTES
1. G. Durand,L'immaginazione simbolica. Il pensiero scientifico. Roma, 1977.
2. D. Frigoli, La metamorfosi della coscienza. Ed. Riza. Mialno, 1985.
3. E. Neumann, Storia delle origini della coscienza. Astrolabio. Roma, 1978; pp. 257-258.
4. E. Neumann, ibidem
5. "In the first lines of his 'Introduction to Narcissism' ('Zur Einführung des Narzissismus', 1914), Freud declares he has borrowed this term from P. Nacke (1899), who uses it to describe a perversion. In a 1920 added note to 'Three essays on the theory of sexuality' ('Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie'), he repeats this assertion: the term must have been coined by H. Ellis. Actually it was Nacke himself who coined the word Narzissismus, in order to comment on some theses by H. Ellis who, in 1898, was the first to describe a perverted behaviour connecting it to the myth of Narcissus ('Autoerotism, a psychological study'). By the term narcissism, Freud underlines Narcissus' love for his own image; he considers such primary phase in the psychosexual evolution of libido - characterized by a total absence of relationships with the environment - as fundamental to allow the subsequent formation of the ego through the identification with the other (secondary narcissismus)".
6. J. Laplanche and J. B. Pontalis, 'Enciclopedia della psicoanalisi' - vol. 2, pp. 323-324. Laterza. Bari 1974
7. Ovidio, 'Metamorfosi', III, pp.339-510. Zanichelli. Bologna 1943.
8. It is peculiar to remark how the element of stiffness proper to Narcissus is confirmed in the medieval version of the myth in the XLVI th tale of the Novellino ( Il Novellino 'Le ciento novelle antike' Rizzoli, Milano 1957, page 56). According to this version, Narcissus, in love with his image and drowned in a fountain during the Spring, is pulled out dead by some women who (quite unlikely) lean him standing on his feet beside the fountain, where the god of love changes him into an almond tree.
9. E. Neumann, ibidem, pp. 84, 100.
10. E. Neumann, ibidem, p. 94
11. Penteo, king of Thebes, together with his mother Agave, opposed Dionysiac cults, forbidding their celebration. Gone crazy, he took part in the orgies, disguised as a woman; it was there that Dionysos had him torn to pieces by the Maenads led by Agave herself, who had mistaken him for a lion. Hippolite, Theseus' son, a hunter devoted to Artemis, rejected the love proposals of Fedra, his stepmother who - to revenge herself - slandered him with Theseus. This latter, with Poseydon's help, stirred up a sea monster against Hippolite: as a consequence his horses, gone crazy, dragged him to a horrible death.
12. The myths are displayed in the tragedies by Euripides 'Baccanti' and Ippolito', and also in the tragedy 'Fedra' by Seneca.
13. Pausania, 'Description of Greece', ed, Oxford, pp.310-311
14. E. Neumann, 'La Grande Madre', p. 306, Astrolabio-Ubaldini, Roma, 1981.
15. E. Neumann, ibidem, p.309.
16. I. Progoff, 'Le dimensioni non causali dell'esperienza umana', p.73, Astrolabio. Roma 1975.
17. K. L. Moore, 'Lo sviluppo dell'uomo', p.352. Zanichelli. Firenze 1984.
18. K.L. Moore, ibidem, p.354.
19. H. Tuchmann-Duplessis, 'Atlante di Embriologia Umana', p. 381. Utet. Torino 1981.
20. Lama Anagarika Govinda, 'Meditazione creativa e coscienza multidimensionale' p. 73. Ubaldini, Roma, 1978