In
Greek mythology
A major branch of classical mythology, Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of Ancient Greek folklore. These stories concern the Cosmogony, origin and Cosmology#Metaphysical co ...
, the Shirt of Nessus, Tunic of Nessus, Nessus-robe, or Nessus' shirt was the poisoned shirt that killed
Heracles
Heracles ( ; grc-gre, Ἡρακλῆς, , glory/fame of Hera), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptive ...
. It was once a popular reference in literature. In
folkloristics
Folklore studies, less often known as folkloristics, and occasionally tradition studies or folk life studies in the United Kingdom, is the branch of anthropology devoted to the study of folklore. This term, along with its synonyms, gained currenc ...
, it is considered an instance of the "
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 folktales of various cultures, including ancient Greece, Mughal India, and the United St ...
" motif.
Mythology
Fearing that Heracles had taken a new lover in
Iole
In Greek mythology, Iole (; grc, Ἰόλη ) was the daughter of King Eurytus of Oechalia. According to the brief epitome in the '' Bibliotheca'', Eurytus had a beautiful young daughter named Iole who was eligible for marriage. Iole was claimed ...
, his wife
Deianeira
Deianira, Deïanira, or Deianeira (; Ancient Greek: Δηϊάνειρα, ''Dēiáneira'', or , ''Dēáneira'', ), also known as Dejanira, is a Calydonian princess in Greek mythology whose name translates as "man-destroyer" or "destroyer of her hu ...
gives him the "shirt" (actually a
chiton), which was stained with the blood of the centaur
Nessus. She had been tricked by the dying Nessus into believing it would serve as a potion to ensure her husband's faithfulness. In fact, it contained the venom of the
Lernaean Hydra
The Lernaean Hydra or Hydra of Lerna ( grc-gre, Λερναῖα Ὕδρα, ''Lernaîa Hýdra''), more often known simply as the Hydra, is a serpentine water monster in Greek and Roman mythology. Its lair was the lake of Lerna in the Argolid, whi ...
with which Heracles had poisoned the arrow he used to kill Nessus. When Heracles puts it on, the Hydra's venom begins to cook him alive, and to escape this unbearable pain he builds a funeral pyre and throws himself on it.
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".
Historical references
Münster Rebellion
During the
anabaptist
Anabaptism (from New Latin language, Neo-Latin , from the Greek language, Greek : 're-' and 'baptism', german: Täufer, earlier also )Since the middle of the 20th century, the German-speaking world no longer uses the term (translation: "Re- ...
Münster Rebellion
Münster (; nds, Mönster) is an independent city (''Kreisfreie Stadt'') in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is in the northern part of the state and is considered to be the cultural centre of the Westphalia region. It is also a state distr ...
of 1534, a fifteen-year-old girl named Hille Feyken (or Feiken) attempted to deceive Münster's Prince-Bishop Franz von Waldeck, who had been commanding a protracted siege of the city. Her plan was to pretend to defect and entice the Bishop with information about the city's defenses while giving him a handsome shirt soaked in poison. Before her plan could be carried out she was betrayed by another defector, who warned the bishop, and Feyken was tortured and killed.
Hitler plot
Major-General
Henning von Tresckow
Henning Hermann Karl Robert von Tresckow (; 10 January 1901 – 21 July 1944) was a German military officer with the rank of major general in the Nazi Germany, German Army who helped organize German resistance to Nazism, German resistance again ...
, one of the primary conspirators in the
July 20 plot
On 20 July 1944, Claus von Stauffenberg and other conspirators attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Führer of Nazi Germany, inside his Wolf's Lair field headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia, now Kętrzyn, in present-day Poland. The ...
to assassinate
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
, 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'." Tresckow himself, echoing Heracles, committed suicide by grenade on the Eastern Front, shortly after the failure of the putsch.
References in literature
John Barth
''The Shirt of Nessus'' (1952) is the master's
thesis
A thesis ( : theses), or dissertation (abbreviated diss.), is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings.International Standard ISO 7144: ...
of the noted American
postmodern
Postmodernism is an intellectual stance or mode of discourseNuyen, A.T., 1992. The Role of Rhetorical Devices in Postmodernist Discourse. Philosophy & Rhetoric, pp.183–194. characterized by skepticism toward the " grand narratives" of moderni ...
novelist
John Barth
John Simmons Barth (; born May 27, 1930) is an American writer who is best known for his postmodern and metafictional fiction. His most highly regarded and influential works were published in the 1960s, and include ''The Sot-Weed Factor'', a ...
. Written for the Writing Seminars program at
Johns Hopkins
Johns Hopkins (May 19, 1795 – December 24, 1873) was an American merchant, investor, and philanthropist. Born on a plantation, he left his home to start a career at the age of 17, and settled in Baltimore, Maryland where he remained for most ...
, which Barth himself later ran, ''The Shirt of Nessus'' is in the form of a short
novel
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itsel ...
or
novella
A novella is a narrative prose fiction whose length is shorter than most novels, but longer than most short stories. The English word ''novella'' derives from the Italian ''novella'' meaning a short story related to true (or apparently so) facts ...
. It is his first full-length fictional work, but little is known of its content. Barth has revealed himself to be embarrassed by most of his unpublished work before ''
The Floating Opera
''The Floating Opera'' is a novel by American writer John Barth, first published in 1956 and significantly revised in 1967. Barth's first published work, the existentialist and nihilist story is a first-person account of a day when protagonist ...
''. ''The Shirt of Nessus'' is briefly referenced in both of Barth's nonfiction collections, ''
The Friday Book
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' and ''
Further Fridays
Further or Furthur may refer to:
* ''Furthur'' (bus), the Merry Pranksters' psychedelic bus
* Further (band), a 1990s American indie rock band
* Furthur (band), a band formed in 2009 by Bob Weir and Phil Lesh
* ''Further'' (The Chemical Brothers a ...
''. The only known copies not held by the author were kept in the Johns Hopkins and the Writing Seminars libraries, but the Writing Seminars copy disappeared in the mid-1960s, and other has also disappeared. Some Johns Hopkins faculty members who know Barth speculate that he may have removed them. Indeed, 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". However, the novelist and scholar David Morell in his ''John Barth: An Introduction'', notes that he has a copy.
Robert Duncan
In the "Introduction" to ''
Bending the Bow
In applied mechanics, bending (also known as flexure) characterizes the behavior of a slender structural element subjected to an external load applied perpendicularly to a longitudinal axis of the element.
The structural element is assumed to ...
'': "
Pound sought coherence in The Cantos and comes in Canto 116 to lament 'and I cannot make it cohere.' But the 'SPLENDOUR, IT ALL COHERES' of the poet's Herakles in The Women of Trachis is a key or recognition of a double meaning that turns in the lock of the Nessus shirt."
In Audit/Poetry IV.3, issue featuring
Robert Duncan, in his long polemic with
Robin Blaser
Robin Francis Blaser (May 18, 1925 – May 7, 2009) was an author and poet in both the United States and Canada.
Personal background
Born in Denver, Colorado, Blaser grew up in Idaho, and came to Berkeley, California, in 1944. There he met Jack ...
's translation of ''
The Chimeras
''The Chimeras'' (french: Les Chimères) is a sequence of sonnets by the French writer Gérard de Nerval, made up of eight individual poems and a total of twelve sonnets. The poems are: "El Desdichado", "Myrtho", "Horus", "Anteros", " Delphica", " ...
'' of
Gérard de Nerval
Gérard de Nerval (; 22 May 1808 – 26 January 1855) was the pen name of the French writer, poet, and translator Gérard Labrunie, a major figure of French romanticism, best known for his novellas and poems, especially the collection ''Les Fil ...
, which Duncan believes deliberately and fatally omit the mystical and gnostic overtones of the original, Duncan writes: "The mystical doctrine of neo-Pythagorean naturalism has become like a Nessus shirt to the translator, and in the translation we hear Heracles' tortured cry from Pound's version of the Women of Trachis from Sophokles: 'it all coheres.'"
Hyam Plutzik
In
Hyam Plutzik
Hyam Plutzik (July 13, 1911 – January 8, 1962), a Pulitzer prize finalist, was a poet and Professor of English at the University of Rochester.
Books
*''The Three'' (Yale University Prize Poem, 1933). New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press ...
's poem "Portrait", which appears in his collection ''
Apples From Shinar
An apple is an edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus domestica''). Apple fruit tree, trees are agriculture, cultivated worldwide and are the most widely grown species in the genus ''Malus''. The tree originated in Central Asia, wh ...
'', the poet writes of a Jewish-American character in the late 1950s who has successfully assimilated, and is able to "ignore the monster, the mountain—/A few thousand years of history." Except for one problem, "one ill-fitting garment…The shirt, the borrowed shirt, /The Greek shirt." The last line reveals the "Greek shirt" is "a shirt by Nessus."
Other appearances in fiction
*In
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, Edmund Wilson, and Sinclair Lewis. His works ...
's ''
Jurgen'', 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.
*
Lucy Larcom
Lucy Larcom (March 5, 1824 – April 17, 1893) was an American teacher, poet, and author. She was one of the first teachers at Wheaton Female Seminary (now Wheaton College) in Norton, Massachusetts, teaching there from 1854 to 1862. During that t ...
's anti-war and anti-slavery ballad "Weaving" is a soliloquy of a northern factory woman working at her loom who compares the cloth she weaves with a Nessus-robe for the Southern slave women who suffered to produce the cotton.
References in Film and Television
*In the 1994 movie ''
Hercules in the Underworld
''Hercules in the Underworld'' is the fourth television movie in the syndicated fantasy series ''Hercules: The Legendary Journeys''.
In the film, Hercules is finally a happy family man with his wife Deianeira, two young sons Aeson and Clonus, d ...
'', similar to the original myth, Nessus tricks Deianeira into believing his blood will keep Hercules faithful. When she suspects Hercules is having an affair with Iole, she sends him a cloak smeared with the blood. When he puts it on, it comes to life and tries to strangle him, but he manages to tear it off and destroy it.
References in non-fiction
*''The Shirt of Nessus'' is a 1956 non-fiction book dealing with anti-Nazi groups in Germany during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
*The Polish dissident writer
Jan Józef Lipski
Jan Józef Lipski (26 May 1926 in Warsaw – 10 September 1991 in Kraków) was a Polish critic, literature historian, politician and freemason. As a soldier of the Home Army ( Armia Krajowa), he fought in the Warsaw Uprising. Editor of collected w ...
published a collection of essays called ''Tunika Nessosa'' ("The Shirt of Nessos"), dealing with, and critical of, Polish Catholic nationalism. Lipski called nationalism the shirt of Nessos, which destroys the cultural genius of a nation.
*
Uri Avnery
Uri Avnery ( he, אורי אבנרי, also transliterated Uri Avneri; 10 September 1923 – 20 August 2018) was an Israeli writer, politician, and founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement. A member of the Irgun as a teenager, Avnery sat for two ...
has compared the territories
occupied
' (Norwegian: ') is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV2 on 5 October 2015. Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg. Season 2 premiered on 10 October ...
by
Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
after the
Six-Day War
The Six-Day War (, ; ar, النكسة, , or ) or June War, also known as the 1967 Arab–Israeli War or Third Arab–Israeli War, was fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab world, Arab states (primarily United Arab Republic, Egypt, S ...
to the Shirt of Nessus.
References
Bibliography
* Baughman, Ernest W., ''Type and Motif Index of the Folktales of England and North America'', Walter De Gruyter, June 1966. .
* Mayor, Adrienne, "The Nessus Shirt in the New World: Smallpox Blankets in History and Legend," ''Journal of American Folklore'' 108:427:54 (1995).
External links
''Hercules Poisoned by the Shirt of Nessus'' a 15th-century illumination at the Getty Museum.
{{Greek religion, state=collapsed
Classical mythology in popular culture
Aetolian mythology
Fictional garments
Mythological clothing
Mythology of Heracles
Shirts