Episode Details

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Abby, Patrick, and Dan dig into the realms of myth and fable to investigate the ancient origins of the Narcissus myth. As they discover, behind the skeletal form of the story (i.e., guy falls in love with his own reflection) are a multitude of versions, with some striking variations and suggestive throughlines. After cataloguing these, they turn to the primary source for the modern version of the myth, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, reading that poem’s account of the doomed encounter between Narcissus and the nymph Echo as a story of impossible desires and intertwined destinies.

Texts cited include:

Ovid, Metamorphoses, translated by Charles Martin: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393925340

Paul Veyne, Did the Greeks Believe Their Myths

Malcolm Kenneth Brown, The Narratives of Konon

The Oxyrhynchus Papyri: https://oxyrhynchus.web.ox.ac.uk/

Pausanias, translated by WHS Jones et al, Descriptions of Greece

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Theme song:
Formal Chicken - Gnossienne No. 1
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