ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to show how two different paths of elaborating the negativity of self-consciousness in Schelling and Hegel create a particular mirror effect that can no longer be understood within the realm of dialectics or any conceptual image, but rather can be resolved through what I will characterize as the image of self-consciousness. I argue that these two different perspectives, despite exhausting dialectics and negativity, can be brought together, each in its own way, through the (...) images of reflection, desire, and death as presented in the mythic narratives of Narcissus and Orpheus. I attempt to show that the death of Narcissus and the loss of Eurydice can lay equal claims to being about the birth of self-consciousness. (shrink)