The Shirt of Nessus
Encyclopedia
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
was the poisoned shirt that killed Heracles
Heracles
Heracles ,born Alcaeus or Alcides , was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, foster son of Amphitryon and great-grandson of Perseus...
. It was once a popular reference in literature. In folkloristics
Folkloristics
Folkloristics is the formal academic study of folklore. The term derives from a nineteenth century German designation of folkloristik to distinguish between folklore as the content and folkloristics as its study, much as language is distinguished from linguistics...
, it is considered an instance of the "poison dress
Poison dress
The tale known as "The Poison Dress", or "Embalmed Alive" features a dress that has in some way been poisoned. This is a recurring theme throughout legends and folk tales of various cultures, including ancient Greece, Mughal India, and the United States...
" motif.
In Greek mythology, it is the shirt (chiton
Chiton (costume)
A chiton was a form of clothing worn by men and women in Ancient Greece, from the Archaic period to the Hellenistic period ....
) daubed with the tainted blood of the centaur Nessus
Nessus (mythology)
In Greek mythology, Nessus was a famous centaur who was killed by Heracles, and whose tainted blood in turn killed Heracles. He was the son of Centauros. He fought in the battle with the Lapiths. He became a ferryman on the river Euenos....
that Deianeira, Hercules
Hercules
Hercules is the Roman name for Greek demigod Heracles, son of Zeus , and the mortal Alcmene...
' wife, naïvely gave Hercules, burning him, and driving him to throw himself onto a funeral pyre.
Metaphorically, it represents "a source of misfortune from which there is no escape; a fatal present; anything that wounds the susceptibilities" or a "destructive or expiatory force or influence"
Hitler plot
Major-General Henning von TresckowHenning von Tresckow
Generalmajor Herrmann Karl Robert "Henning" von Tresckow was a Major General in the German Wehrmacht who organized German resistance against Adolf Hitler. He attempted to assassinate Hitler in March 1943 and drafted the Valkyrie plan for a coup against the German government...
, one of the primary conspirators in the July 20 plot
July 20 Plot
On 20 July 1944, an attempt was made to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of the Third Reich, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia. The plot was the culmination of the efforts of several groups in the German Resistance to overthrow the Nazi-led German government...
to assassinate Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
, famously referred to the 'Robe of Nessus' following the realization that the assassination plot had failed and that he and others involved in the conspiracy would lose their lives as a result:
"None of us can complain about our own deaths. Everyone who joined our circle put on the 'Robe of Nessus'."
William Shakespeare
In Act 4.12 of Shakespeare's play Antony and CleopatraAntony and Cleopatra
Antony and Cleopatra is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607. It was first printed in the First Folio of 1623. The plot is based on Thomas North's translation of Plutarch's Lives and follows the relationship between Cleopatra and Mark Antony...
, Mark Antony
Mark Antony
Marcus Antonius , known in English as Mark Antony, was a Roman politician and general. As a military commander and administrator, he was an important supporter and loyal friend of his mother's cousin Julius Caesar...
is in a rage after losing the Battle of Actium
Battle of Actium
The Battle of Actium was the decisive confrontation of the Final War of the Roman Republic. It was fought between the forces of Octavian and the combined forces of Mark Antony and Cleopatra VII. The battle took place on 2 September 31 BC, on the Ionian Sea near the city of Actium, at the Roman...
and exclaims, "The shirt of Nessus is upon me."
Alexandre Dumas
In his work The Count of Monte CristoThe Count of Monte Cristo
The Count of Monte Cristo is an adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas. It is often considered to be, along with The Three Musketeers, Dumas's most popular work. He completed the work in 1844...
, after Benedetto reveals in court that the crown prosecutor Monsieur de Villefort was his illegitimate father, he (de Villefort) forfeits his job and he removes his robes because it was a burden and torment to him, using the shirt of Nessus as a metaphor.
T.S. Eliot
In section IV of his poem "Little Gidding," the final poem of Four Quartets, Eliot alludes to the Nessus myth and the Herculean "shirt of flame" in his lines:Who then devised the torment? Love.
Love is the unfamiliar Name
Behind the hands that wove
The intolerable shirt of flame
Which human power cannot remove.
We only live, only suspire
Consumed by either fire or fire.
John Barth
The Shirt of Nessus (1952) is also the title of a masters thesisThesis
A dissertation or thesis is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings...
of noted American postmodern novelist John Barth
John Barth
John Simmons Barth is an American novelist and short-story writer, known for the postmodernist and metafictive quality of his work.-Life:...
. Written for the Writing Seminars program at Johns Hopkins University
Johns Hopkins University
The Johns Hopkins University, commonly referred to as Johns Hopkins, JHU, or simply Hopkins, is a private research university based in Baltimore, Maryland, United States...
, which Barth himself later ran, The Shirt of Nessus is not a dissertation, but rather a short novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
or novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
. It can be considered the first full-length fictional work of Barth's, and it also is likely to remain the most elusive. Barth, not unlike a fair number of other authors, has revealed himself to be embarrassed by his early non-published work; in this case, most work prior to The Floating Opera
The Floating Opera
The Floating Opera is a 1956 novel by the American writer John Barth. It chronicles one day in the life of Todd Andrews, a day on which he makes a very important decision. It was Barth's first novel....
. The Shirt of Nessus is briefly referenced in both of Barth's non-fiction collections, The Friday Book and Further Fridays, but little is known of its actual content. The only known copies not held by the author were kept in the Johns Hopkins school library and the Writing Seminars Department thesis copies - however, recent inquiries by devoted Barth fans have shown that the copy held by the Writing Seminars at Johns Hopkins disappeared in the mid-1960s, while the other seemed to mysteriously "walk out" of the school's special collections division of the library. It is the opinion of some notable JHU faculty members who occasionally talk to Barth that he may have even been the mastermind behind these disappearances himself. While that remains speculation, when the special collections division notified Barth in 2002 (when the volume was first found to be missing), Barth responded that he "was not altogether unhappy the library no longer had a copy".
Other appearances in fiction
In Robertson Davies' novel "Fifth BusinessFifth Business
Fifth Business is a 1970 novel by Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor Robertson Davies. It is the first installment of the Deptford Trilogy and is a story of the life of the narrator, Dunstan Ramsay...
", when Dunstan buys an expensive silk shirt at a cost beyond his means. He purchases it out of envy for his rival, Boy Staunton, who is living a life of wealth while attending the same university. "It burned me like the shirt of Nessus, but I wore it to rags, to get my money out of it, garment of the guilty luxury that it was."
In H. Rider Haggard
H. Rider Haggard
Sir Henry Rider Haggard, KBE was an English writer of adventure novels set in exotic locations, predominantly Africa, and a founder of the Lost World literary genre. He was also involved in agricultural reform around the British Empire...
's Montezuma's Daughter
Montezuma's Daughter
Montezuma's Daughter, first published in 1893, was a novel written by the Victorian adventure writer H. Rider Haggard.Narrated in the first person by Thomas Wingfield, an Englishman whose adventures include having his mother murdered, a brush with the Spanish Inquisition, shipwreck, and slavery...
, when Otomie the princess is made to wear the garb of a low-class woman in order to escape imprisonment, the narrator states that "for her proud heart, that dress was the very shirt of Nessus." In James Branch Cabell
James Branch Cabell
James Branch Cabell, ; April 14, 1879 – May 5, 1958) was an American author of fantasy fiction and belles lettres. Cabell was well regarded by his contemporaries, including H. L. Mencken and Sinclair Lewis. His works were considered escapist and fit well in the culture of the 1920s, when his...
's Jurgen
The Biography of Manuel
The Biography of Manuel is a series of novels, essays and poetry by James Branch Cabell. It purports to trace the life, illusions and disillusions of Dom Manuel, Count of Poictesme , and of his physical and spiritual descendants through many generations...
, the title character dons the shirt of nessus and is transported by it on his travels, in the end of the story he is allowed to take it off, in contradiction to the usual conventions.
Also in Mihai Eminescu's
Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu was a Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an active member of the Junimea literary society and he worked as an editor for the newspaper Timpul , the official newspaper of the Conservative Party...
poem, Ode (In ancient meter), [1883, Romanian to English]
"Or like Hercules by his garment poisoned;
By my own illusion consumed I'm wailing
On my own grim pyre in flames I'm melting..."
In Patrick O'Brian
Patrick O'Brian
Patrick O'Brian, CBE , born Richard Patrick Russ, was an English novelist and translator, best known for his Aubrey–Maturin series of novels set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars and centred on the friendship of English Naval Captain Jack Aubrey and the Irish–Catalan physician Stephen...
's novel “The Surgeon's Mate
The Surgeon's Mate
The Surgeon's Mate is a historical novel written by Patrick O'Brian and set during the Napoleonic Wars. It is the seventh book in the Aubrey–Maturin series.-Plot summary:...
”, Stephen Maturin
Recurring characters in the Aubrey–Maturin series
This is a list of recurring characters in the Aubrey–Maturin series of novels by Patrick O'Brian. References to page numbers, where they appear, are based upon the W. W. Norton & Company printing of the novels.-Main characters and their families:...
reflects on his friend Sir Joseph Blain's lament for his diminished sexual appetite . Blaine comments “You are a younger man than I am, Maturin, and it may be that you do not know from experience that the absence of torment may be a worse torment still: you may wish to throw a hair shirt aside, not realizing that it is the hair shirt alone that keeps you warm. 'A Nessus' Shirt might be more apt' said Stephen, quite unheard."
In Mary Renault
Mary Renault
Mary Renault born Eileen Mary Challans, was an English writer best known for her historical novels set in Ancient Greece...
's novel “The Charioteer
The Charioteer
The Charioteer is a 1953 war novel and gay novel by Mary Renault. It was first published in the United States in 1959. The Charioteer is significant because it features a prominent gay theme at an early date and quickly became a bestseller within the gay community.-Plot summary:This romance novel...
”, the matron of the ward of the military hospital where Laurie 'Spud' Odell is convalescing is introduced as follows:
“Matron had just arrived, and done a round. She came poking into the ward, her petticoat showing slightly, defensively frigid; she had been promoted beyond her dreams and it had been a Nessus' shirt to her. Homesick for her little country nursing home, she peered down the line of beds, noting with dismay how many men were up and at large, rough men with rude, cruel laughter, who wrote things on walls, who talked about women, who got VD (but then one was able to transfer them elsewhere). She was wretched, but her career was booming.”
In Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series of books a vague reference is made to the Shirt of Nessus as the brothers Travis and Connor Stoll give a t-shirt coated in Centaur blood to one of Artemis' Hunters. While in this telling the pain caused is not insufferable, the immortal hunter was laid up with a bad case of hives as a result of the brothers' prank.
In Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series, the city which Severian, the main character originates from is called "Nessus." The main character himself is referred to as "The New Sun", a fiery epithet to be sure, and ultimately his attempt to revive the Urth/Earth with a new sun causes a gravitational distortion that floods the whole of the Earth and destroys his home city.
External links
- Hercules Poisoned by the Shirt of Nessus, a 15th-century illumination at the Getty Museum.