Once upon a time, there lived a young man named Narcissus.
He was handsome.
In fact, he was the most beautiful man in the world.
Narcissus did not know how handsome he was.
But his mother did.
She worried about him all the time.
"What are you holding in your hand, Mother?"
Narcissus pointed at the mirror.
"It is nothing," she answered.
"Well, good night then," he shrugged.
Narcissus' mother always said to him.
"If you do not look at yourself, you will live a long life."
But Narcissus wanted to fall in love.
"How can I fall in love if I don't know what I look like?" he said to himself.
Every day Narcissus took long walks in the woods.
"I wish I could fall in love," Narcissus said to himself.
Narcissus did not know that many women already loved him.
One day Narcissus walked to the deepest part of the woods.
"Oh, what's that?" he said, as he noticed a small pond.
"I've never seen a pond here before."
"Oh! Oh!" Narcissus suddenly cried out.
For inside the pond was the most beautiful person he had ever seen!
"Where have you been all my life?" he whispered lovingly.
Narcissus, of course, was looking at his own reflection in the water.
"Can there be anyone more beautiful than you?" he asked his reflection.
"At last I have finally found my true love."
It was almost dark and Narcissus had not returned home.
"He has been gone too long!" his mother worried.
"I wonder if something has happened to him."
"Eating, sleeping? What good is it to me?" Narcissus spoke gently.
"If I can't be with you, what reason is there to live?"
That day Narcissus did not return home.
In fact, for many, many days, Narcissus did not eat or sleep.
He was deeply in love—with himself!
Finally Narcissus died looking at himself in the pond.
After he died, Narcissus' body turned into a beautiful flower.
The flower's head bends over, like Narcissus peering into the water.
It looks at the loveliest sight in the whole world.
For Narcissus it was beauty to die for.