| Nemesis | |
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Other Names |
Rhamnousia |
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First Appearance |
Greek Myth |
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Created by |
Unknown |
Origin[]
In ancient Greek religion and myth, Nemesis also called Rhamnousia, was the goddess who personified retribution for the sin of hubris: arrogance before the gods.
According to Hesiod's Theogony, Nemesis was one of the children of Nyx alone. Nemesis has been described as the daughter of Oceanus, Erebus, or Zeus, but according to Hyginus she was a child of Erebus and Nyx. Some made her the daughter of Zeus by an unnamed mother. In several traditions, Nemesis was seen as the mother of Helen of Troy by Zeus, adopted and raised by Leda and Tyndareus. According to the Byzantine poet Tzetzes, Bacchylides had Nemesis as the mother of the Telchines by Tartarus.
In the Greek tragedies Nemesis appears chiefly as the avenger of crime and the punisher of hubris, and as such is akin to Atë and the Erinyes. She was sometimes called Adrasteia, probably meaning "one from whom there is no escape"; her epithet Erinys ("implacable") is specially applied to Demeter and the Phrygian mother goddess, Cybele.
In some less common traditions, it is Nemesis, rather than the mortal Spartan queen Leda, who is the mother of Helen of Troy. This narrative is first found in the lost epic Cypria, the prelude of the Iliad. According to its author, Stasinus of Cyprus, Helen was born from the rape of Nemesis by Zeus. Zeus fell in love with Nemesis, here possibly presented as his own daughter, and pursued her, only for her to flee in shame. She took several forms to escape Zeus, but he eventually captured her and forced himself on her.
Apollodorus speaks of a single transformation, into a goose, while Zeus turned into a swan to hunt her down and raped her, producing an egg that was given to the queen of Sparta; Helen hatched from the egg, and was raised by Leda. In another variation, Zeus desired Nemesis, but could not persuade her to sleep with him. So he tasked Aphrodite to transform into an eagle and mock-chase him, while he transformed into a swan. Nemesis, pitying the poor swan, offered it refuge in her arms, and fell into a deep sleep. While asleep, Zeus raped her and in time she bore an egg which was transported to Leda by Hermes. Leda then raised Helen as her own.
In Ovid's Metamorphoses, Nemesis enacted divine retribution on Narcissus for his vanity. After he rejected the advances of the nymph Echo, Nemesis lured him to a pool where he caught sight of his own reflection and fell in love with it, eventually dying. His body was transformed by the nymphs into a narcissus flower.
In Nonnus' epic Dionysiaca, Aura, one of Artemis' virgin attendants, questioned her mistress' virginity due to the feminine and curvaceous shape of her body; Aura claimed that no goddess or woman with that sort of figure would be a virgin, and asserted her own superiority over the goddess thanks to her own lean and boyish silhouette. Artemis, enraged, went to Nemesis and asked for revenge. Nemesis promised to the goddess that Aura would have her punishment, and that the punishment would be to lose the virginity she took such pride in. Nemesis then contacted Eros, the god of love, and he struck Dionysus with one of his arrows. Dionysus fell madly in love with Aura, and when she rebuffed his advances, he got her drunk, tied her up and raped her as she lay unconscious, bringing Nemesis' plan to a success.
Public Domain Appearances[]
All published appearances of Nemesis from before January 1, 1930 are public domain in the US.
Some notable appearances are listed below:
Public Domain Literary Appearances[]
- Theogony
- The Cypria Fragments
- Odes
- Prometheus Bound
- Fragments
- Laws
- Apollodorus, The Library
- Callimachus, Hymns
- Callimachus, Fragments
- Alexandra
- Strabo, Geography
- Description of Greece
- The Orphic Hymns
- Life of Apollonius of Tyana
- Dionysiaca
- Fabulae
- Astronomica
- Metamorphoses
- De Natura Deorum
- The Argonautica
- Silvae
- The Golden Ass
- The Suda