VANITY 4 0 1

Vanity

As with some of the other themes in this book, a single figure dominates this theme. The name of NARCISSUS has become synonymous in English with the idea of excessive self-admiration. • See also Arrogance, Pride.

Narcissus In Greek mythology, Narcissus was a youth of extraordinary beauty who cruelly spurned many admirers, including the nymph Echo. On bending down to a pool one day to drink, he fell in love with his own reflection. There are various versions of the fate that subsequently befell Narcissus. According to one version, he fell into the pool as he tried to embrace his own reflection and drowned. Another version relates how, having tried to kiss and embrace his reflection and failed, Narcissus simply pined away and died. After his death, the gods turned his body into the white flower that bears his name. Narcissus is the epitome of excessive vanity, and his name has given us the word 'narcissism'.

A feeling of pain crept over him as he thought of the desecration that was in store for the fair face on the canvas. Once, in boyish mockery of Narcissus, he had kissed, or feigned to kiss, those painted lips that now smiled so cruelly at him.

OSCAR WILDE The Picture of Dorian Cray, 1891

There were gilt cherubs in the bathroom holding white towels through rings in their mouths, and the walls and ceiling were made of looking-glass. Narcissus could lie in his nacreous bath and, gazing upward, see all of himself reflected.

ALICE THOMAS ELLIS The 27th Kingdom, 1982

Snow White's Stepmother In the traditional fairy story, Snow White's stepmother is proud and vain, and regularly demands of her magic mirror:

'Mirror, mirror on the wall, Who is the fairest of them all?'

When Snow White grows to be more beautiful than her, she orders her stepdaughter to be taken into the forest and killed.

Ugly Sisters In the fairy tale of Cinderella, Cinderella's two stepsisters have both been invited to the prince's ball and spend days fussing over what they are going to wear to the ball and how beautiful they are going to look. In pantomime versions of the tale, the stepsisters are presented as the Ugly Sisters, played by men and made grotesquely ugly so that their vanity becomes ridiculous and comical.

4 0 2 VICTORY

Victory

This theme deals with victory in a battle or contest. Other kinds of attain-

ment are covered in the theme Success. • See also Defeat.

Agincourt Agincourt (now Azincourt), a village in France, is close to the site of a battle between the French and the English in 1415 during the Hundred Years War. Although the English were heavily outnumbered, the terrain, a muddy valley, suited the English forces, largely archers, rather than the French who had armoured cavalry and infantry fighting in massed formations. The English lost only about 200 men to French losses of over 5,000. The battle is remembered chiefly because of its prominence in Shakespeare's Henry V.

Bull Run During the American civil war, two battles were fought between the Union and Confederate armies at Manassas Junction in Virginia, near a stream named Bull Run. In the first battle in 1861, General Jackson's Confederate Army held off Union troops until relieved by reinforcements, in the process earning for Jackson the nickname 'Stonewall'. In the second battle, General Robert E. Lee defeated the Union army, driving them from the battleground and forcing them to retreat to Washington, DC.

David In the Bible, the shepherd boy David accepted the challenge to fight the Philistine warrior Goliath (1 Sam. 17). Although Goliath was nine feet tall, David killed him armed only with a sling and pebbles. David's triumph in overcoming Goliath is the more remarkable because of the inequality in their relative status. • See special entry • DAVID on p. 90.

Every day we hear of more Italian armies driven back or defeated, and we feel the jubilation of David with Goliath dead at his feet.

LOUIS DE BERNIÈRES Captain Corelli's Mandolin, 1994

Nike Nike was the Greek goddess of victory, usually represented as a winged figure. Statues of Nike are often referred to as 'Winged Victories', such as the Nike of Samothrace (c.200 BC), preserved in the Louvre in Paris.

She's a Nike . . . on the prow of a Creek ship.

ANNA DOUCLAS SEDGWICK Little French Girl, 1924

Pyrrhic victory Pyrrhus (c.318-272 BC) was king of Epirus c.307-272. In defeating the Romans at Asculum in 279, he sustained heavy losses, commenting 'Such another victory and we are ruined'. Hence a 'Pyrrhic victory' is one gained with terrible loss of life or at too great a cost.

4 0 4 WAR

Croucho Marx Groucho Marx (Julius Henry Marx, 1890-1977) was one of the US comedy team, the Marx Brothers. His urgent, crouching walk was as distinctive as his wisecracking one-liners and his facial appearance, complete with painted black moustache, glasses, and cigar.

He rushed out of the car like Croucho Marx to get cigarettes—that furious, groundhugging walk with the coattails flying.

JACK KEROUAC On the Road, 1957

Ministry of Silly Walks The Ministry of Silly Walks appears in a well-known sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus, a popular British TV comedy series of the 1970s. A spoof government department, the Ministry employs bowlerhatted civil servants each of whom has an outlandish style of walking.

War

Of the war deities grouped here, MARS is the best known and the one most

commonly used to represent the concept of war.

Ares In Greek mythology, Ares, the son of Zeus and Hera, was the god of war, corresponding to the Roman god Mars.

Athene In Greek mythology, Athene was the goddess of wisdom, handicrafts, and also of war. She is usually represented in sculpture and paintings in armour. She is supposed to have sprung, fully armed and uttering her war-cry, from the head of Zeus.

Brynhild In Scandinavian mytholgy, Brynhild was a Valkyrie whom Sigurd won by penetrating the wall of fire behind which she lay in an enchanted sleep, from which he revived her. She corresponds in the Nibelungenleid to Brunhild, the wife of Gunther, who instigated the murder of Siegfried. As Brunnhilde she is one of the main characters in Wagner's operatic cycle The Ring of the Nibelungs.

Mars In Roman mythology, Mars was the god of war, corresponding to the Greek god Ares.

'Ha, ha!—you must have your joke; well, I'll think o' that. And so they expect Buonaparty to choose this very part of the coast for his landing, hey? And that yeomanry be to stand in front as the forlorn hope?' 'Who says so?' asked the florid son of Mars, losing a little redness.

THOMAS HARDY The Trumpet Major, 1880

I have already said that I am not much of an actor, but I gave a powerful, if crude impersonation of the hero who is tremendous on the field of Mars but slighted in the courts of Venus.

ROBERTSON DAViES Fifth Business, 1970