The Loving Effect

Love represents a wide range of emotions and experiences related to affection and attraction. Love changes your way of acting, your way of thinking, your way seeing the world; love is blind. When you fall in love, your perspective of the world changes completely. In mythology, love is included in the texts, in the stories, love is showed among the characters. Otherwise, in Gilgamesh, or an epic, love doesn't appear among the context. And when love is included in the story, the feeling you get is totally different. When I read these myths I kept asking myself, is love a central figure in this mythical drama? Is love the reason of why things came to be this way? How does love affects the development of events in Bulfinch's Mythology, compared to the love-less epic of Gilgamesh?

In the myth of Echo and Narcissus, love can easily be determined as the central figure of the story; echo falls in love with Narcissus, and as well, Narcissus fell in love with his reflection. " This nymph saw Narcissus, a beautiful youth, as he pursued the chase upon the mountains. She loved him and followed his footsteps. O how she longed to address him in the softest accents, and win him to converse! but it was not in her power. She waited with impatience for him to speak first, and had her answer ready" (Bulfinch, Myth XIII B). Love here can be represented as an unreachable, impossible desire. Young Echo fails to reach love since she is cursed with the punishment from Juno, being able to repeat the last words. Hence, love describes how the echo came to be; the love Echo felt for Narcissus.

"He fell in love with himself. He brought his lips near to take a kiss; he plunged his arms in to embrace the beloved object. It fled at the touch, but returned again after a moment and renewed the fascination. He could not tear himself away; he lost all thought of food or rest, while he hovered over the brink of the fountain gazing upon his own image. He talked with the supposed spirit: “Why, beautiful being, do you shun me? Surely my face is not one to repel you. The nymphs love me, and you yourself look not indifferent upon me" (Bulfinch, Myth XIII B). Narcissus asks here the same question he asked Echo, 'Why do you shun me?'. Therefore we can see how love is an unreachable desire for Narcissus as well. He sees how everything he sees is repeled, as well as his reflection. The young nymph falls in love with his reflection on the mountain, and finds it impossible to reach; fails to reach love, the unreachable desire. But, on the other hand, the story of Narcissus can also represent the effect love can have on our lives. When we fall in love, we fall into the fountain's silvery water. For falling in love, we fall into the fountain, and fail to reach love. Love can bring a lot of positive effects in someone's life, but, in the case of Narcissus and Echo, it was only a bad effect.

Finally, how does love affects the development of events in Bulfinch's Mythology, compared to the love-less epic of Gilgamesh? Love changes the route of the story; in Mythology, love acts as the central figure and acts as a character in the story. On the other hand, love-less Gilgamesh lacks the love character, hence, the story doesn't appear to be changed or modified by this mighty character, love.