Narcissus and Echo: Focus on Oedipus in the Story Essay

Echo and Narcissus is one of the tales penned by Roman poet Ovid in Metamorphoses. These 15 books of Metamorphoses, tells the creation and history of the ancient world. It still holds the honor of being the most popular work on Greek and Roman mythology. Echo and Narcissus, the tale of a nymph and hunter, has long been considered by most scholars as one of the most tragic tales of all times. The metamorphosis of Oedipus is a tragedy to bring a particular ethical conclusion to fruition. The character, Oedipus, in the beginning had to disclose his tragic flaw. In the beginning he was a brilliant conqueror and but became a blind man in the end. However, the moral the tale presents is not merely the consequences of trying to avoid one’s fate. â€Å"But Tiresias shook his head his gray head in warning: ‘Blindness†¦Might be blessing in your case, to keep you ever looking on the rites of Bacchus, The day is near, I know, when the new god shall come, the son of Semele, whose due is I worship from you; if you scorn his temple, you will be torn into a thousands pieces, your blood pollute the wood, and it defilement spatter your mother and your mother’s sisters†. (Ovid, 73) His fate was put in place before he started his journeys, while Tiresias was his inverse at the time of blindness. Although Oedipus has no knowledge or awareness that he has killed his father and going to marry his own mother. Sooner he becomes conscious that the prophecies have come to pass because of and despite him. Oedipus conquered the Sphinx and then grew weaker and weaker until he finally discovered he was the guilty of sexual immorality. â€Å"Oedipus experienced a metamorphosis in which he was originally the greatest man, but by placing himself and his ‘wisdom’ above the gods or God’s, he fell†. (Humphries, ii)