Abstract
It is very well known that the myth of Narcissus was an ideal pattern for expressing philosophical fundamentals of the Symbolism and Decadence (in the sense of the late nineteenth century art movements). Our approach focuses mainly on the water in its two basic modalities, the "erotic" and the "thanatic" water.
Our analysis of the aquatic Symbolism covering sexual, eschatological and temporal spheres attempts to show in which manner the axiological antagonism of this cosmic element extends itself from duality to "trinarity". A special is put on oxymoric structures of this transition period.