Chapter 2 Matter as a Mirror: Marsilio Ficino and Renaissance ...

Matter as a Mirror 67
and sank down into the stream and disappeared) then this
man who clings to beautiful bodies and will not let them go,
will, like the man in the story, but in soul, not in body, sink
down into the dark depths where intellect has no delight,
and stay blind in Hades, consorting with shadows there and
here. 66
The original meaning of the Ovidian myth is thus significantly altered.
Plotinus remodels the story of Narcissus into an allegory of the worldly
temptations of the soul that distract it from its proper goal, contemplation of
the eternal forms. Narcissus’ fate is sealed by his mistaken dedication to the
embodied and treacherous world of corporeal beings, shadows of the higher
truths. His transgression consists in ignoring or forgetting the origin of the
reflection in the water, namely that the soul is the cause of the physical shadow.
67 According to Plotinus, it was Narcissus’ own fault, not his punishment
that led to his drowning in the pond. His fate thus becomes an allegory for
the soul which ceases to contemplate the hierarchy of being and falls in love
with the base images of its own making. 68 In a movement that is central to his
philosophy, Plotinus eclipses the idea that the descent of soul into the corporeal
world is a creative and positive act (as opposed to a dramatic event).
Ironically, by using the story of Narcissus to illustrate the descent of soul into
the world, Plotinus opens the door for an entirely different understanding of
the myth: by gazing at the reflecting surface, Narcissus imprints his form onto
matter and hence shapes or even creates the physical world. The Plotinian
version of the Narcissus story certainly appealed to Ficino for its moralising
content, but yet he inserted it into a different context. Whereas Plotinus had
assumed that soul and body never enter into a unity, matter being a mere
66 Trans. Plotinus (1966–1988) I: 257; Enneads, I, 6, 8.
67 Plotinus, Enneads, V, 8, 2. See Hadot (1976) 99: “Si Narcisse entent pour une réalité
substantielle ce qui n’est qu’un reflet, c’est qu’il ignore la relation entre ce reflet et lui-même.
Il ne comprend pas qu’il est lui-même la cause de ce ombre.”
68 Plotinus, Enneads, I, 6, 8; Hadot (1976) 107 comments: “Narcisse se laisse hypnotiser
par une réalité partielle et imparfaite au lieu de déployer son regard vers le vaste horizon
du tout. Pour Plotin, aussi Narcisse est un contempteur d’Eros, ou plus exactement il
se laisse fasciner par la magie de l’Eros inférieur.” See Enneads IV, 4, 40; Frontisi-Ducroux
(1997) 222–224: “L’âme est coupable de restreindre sa vision elle-même en oubliant qu’elle
n’est que parcelle et reflet de la totalité divine.”