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[David Morris]

http://www.oup-usa.org/sc/0195143388/glossaries/character_n.html

Narcissus [nar-sis'sus] or Narkissos, "benumbing."
The son of the river god Cephisus and the nymph Liriope, he was a handsome 
young man who had many pursuers, but he would have nothing to do with them. 
The nymph Echo fell in love with him and followed him from afar through the 
woods, repeating the ends of his sentences (she had lost her ability to say 
anything more than the last part of what she heard from others). When 
Narcissus rejected her, she wasted away until only her voice remained. 
Another of Narcissus' would-be lovers cursed him to fall hopelessly in love 
with someone who would reject him, just as he had rejected so many others. 
Narcissus saw his reflection in a pool and fell in love with himself; he 
finally died from the grief of his unrequited love. When the nymphs came to 
place his body on the funeral pyre, they found only a flower, the narcissus 
(Ovid, Metamorphoses 3.339-510).


http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~cjcampb/sourcedocs/narcissus.html

The following is taken from The Miscellaneous Works of Mr. J.J. Rousseau, 
vol. II (London: Printed for T. Becket and P.A. de Hondt, in the Strand, 
1767). The HTML document seeks to duplicate the appearance of the original 
as closely as possible. The only significant differences are that the 
character's names have been placed to the left of their respective lines, 
instead of being centered in a space above, and that several obvious 
typographical errors have been corrected.


http://www.hsa.brown.edu/~maicar/Narcissus.html

Stupid assumption:
The spring where Narcissus saw himself is said to be in the territory of the 
Thespians in a place called Donacon. Some reject the story that says that 
Narcissus, looking into the water, did not understand that he saw his own 
reflection, and fell in love with himself, dying of love at the spring. For 
it is stupid, they say, to imagine that a man old enough to fall in love was 
unable to distinguish a man from a man's reflection.

Some think this version is more credible:
Instead they say that Narcissus had a twin sister and that both were exactly 
alike in appearance. He, it is said, fell in love with his sister, and when 
she died, he used to go to the spring, knowing that it was his reflection 
that he saw, but finding some relief for his love, because the reflection 
reminded him of his sister.


http://www.npd-central.org/msla1.asp

The popular misconception is that Narcissists love themselves. In reality, 
they direct their love to second hand impressions of themselves in the eyes 
of beholders. He who loves impressions is not acquainted with the emotion of 
loving humans and is, therefore, incapable of loving them. He loves no 
humans - and, first and foremost, he does not love himself.
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