Desire in Self and in Others

In Song of Songs, the relationship between the lover and beloved is clearly intimate. One pines for the other, and envisions the other as the most sought after person in the world. At one point the lover says, “Like an apple tree among the trees of the forest is my beloved among the young men.
 I delight to sit in his shade, and his fruit is sweet to my taste. Let him lead me to the banquet hall, and let his banner over me be love” (Songs 2: 3-4). They use fruit, herb, and architectural imagery to describe each other’s various body parts. It is specific and vivid. The beloved does not simply say to the lover, “Your eyes are pretty, and you have big breasts,” he instead proliferates, “Your breasts are like two fawns, like twin fawns of a gazelle. Your neck is like an ivory tower. Your eyes are the pools of Heshbon 
by the gate of Bath Rabbim” (Songs 7:3-4). Today this language may appear excessive and over-the-top, but hundreds of years ago, epic love poems like this were much more common, a similar style to “Epithalamion,” by Edmund Spenser. This text is intended to demonstrate the perfect marriage between two people, who both love and desire each other in a biblical context. Back in Genesis, a perfect marriage is ordained by God, when Eve is first created, “The man said, ‘This is now bone of my bones
 and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.’ That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Genesis 2:23-24). Song of Solomon, can be read a various of ways , the two most recognized being, a visual text of a holy, unabashed relationship between man and woman, or a conceit for man’s relationship with Christ (he is the head of the church and the church is his bride). In “The Myth of Narcissus,” Echo was a talkative Nymph, who was cursed by Juno to only be able to repeat the last words someone spoke. An echo today essentially does the same thing, when we are in a large empty room or cave, except it cannot throw arms around you and hug you. Also, echoes cannot fall in love with you and try to get you to speak. It can also not choose which words you just spoke to repeat back to you. However, with Echo the line between an echo and a person is blurred. At one point she appears to simply have a “handicap,” but later it seems like she cannot choose who to reply to, like she must reply the last few words spoken every time she hears someone, “Never again would she reply more willingly to any sound,” (Ovid, 84). Another grey area is when the texts implies he is “deceived by what he took to be another’s voice,” (84). So, in more than one way, Echo does not have her own voice, and in that way she is more shadow an individual. This conversation toys with the power of his own beauty to charm even his echo into falling in love with him, which is what makes the next situation seem less absurd, but still confusing. Narcissus falls in love with “the boy trapped in the pool,” it takes him a while to begin to figure out who the boy is, and even when he learns the boy is, in fact, himself, it is too late. He so is overcome with desire for the person “trapped underwater,” he cannot tear his eyes away from the creature that stares at his from in the water. This tragedy illustrates when your desires can be attainable or foolish, you, outside of your own free will, are trapped and held captive by the apple of your eye, whether or not the apple is a mere illusion. As portrayed in the text, “He…was…excited by the very illusion that deceived his eyes…Why vainly grasp at the fleeting image that eludes you? The thing you are seeing does not exist,” (85). Lacan’s text was quite confusing, referring a lot to how captivating and disrupting one’s own image can be. It parallels Narcissus in that by simply seeing your own reflection it can wreak havoc on and disrupt your current stage of development. Narcissus lost his youth, by being caught up in his reflection in the pool.