Nexus

“ NEMESIS, daughter of Jupiter and Necessity, or, according to some, of Oceănus and Nox, had the care of [94] revenging the crimes which human justice left unpunished. The word Nemĕsis is of Greek origin, nor was there any Latin word that expressed it, therefore the Latin poets usually styled this goddess Rhamnusia, from a famous statue of Nemĕsis at Rhamnus in Attica. She is likewise called Adrastea, because Adrastus, king of Argos, first raised an altar to her. Nemĕsis is plainly divine vengeance, or the eternal justice of God, which severely punishes the wicked actions of men. ”

“ Now the keeper of the gate was Nisus, a valiant man of war, and with him Euryalus, the goodliest youth among the men of Troy; and great love was between them. And as they watched, Nisus said, “Whether it be a bidding of the Gods, or prompting of my own heart, I know not, but I have a great desire to do somewhat this night. Seest thou how the enemy lie asleep and drunken? Can I not win some honour hence, and carry the tidings of these things to Æneas? For yonder by the hill lieth the way to the city of Evander.” ”

“ Nyx, the daughter of Chaos, being the personification of Night, was, according to the poetic ideas of the Greeks, considered to be the mother of everything mysterious and inexplicable, such as death, sleep, dreams, &c. She became united to Erebus, and their children were Aether and Hemera (Air and Daylight) , evidently a simile of the poets, to indicate that darkness always precedes light.
Nyx inhabited a palace in the dark regions of the lower world, and is represented as a beautiful woman, seated in a chariot, drawn by two black horses. ”

“ A Roman goddess who took care of young infants.
Nemaean Lion (Nemae′an) , see Hercules.
Nemesis (Nem′esis) , the goddess of vengeance or justice, was one of the infernal deities. Her mother was Nox. She was supposed to be constantly traveling about the earth in search of wickedness, which she punished with the greatest severity. She is referred to by some writers under the name of Adrasteia. The Romans always sacrificed to this goddess before they went to war, because they wished to signify that they never took up arms but in the cause of justice. ”

“ Nicias embraced Paphnutius, and whispered in his ear—
“I warned you, brother, that Venus was powerful. It is her gentle force that has brought you here in spite of yourself. Listen: you are a man full of piety, but if you do not confess that she is the mother of the gods, your ruin is certain. Do you know that the old mathematician, Melanthes, used to say, ‘I cannot demonstrate the properties of a triangle without the aid of Venus’?” ”

“ And as they journeyed they came to the river Evenus. Now on the banks of this river there dwelt one Nessus, a centaur. (These centaurs had heads as the heads of men, but their bodies were like horses' bodies; and they were a savage race and a lawless.) This Nessus was wont to carry travellers across the river, which indeed was very broad and deep. And when he saw Deïaneira that she was very fair, he would have taken her from her husband; but Hercules drew his bow and smote him with an arrow. ”

“ Nemesis, the daughter of Nyx, represents that power which adjusts the balance of human affairs, by awarding to each individual the fate which his actions deserve. She rewards, humble, unacknowledged merit, punishes crime, deprives the worthless of undeserved good fortune, humiliates the proud and overbearing, and visits all evil on the wrong-doer; thus maintaining that proper balance of things, which the Greeks recognized as a necessary condition of all civilized life. ”

“ So, too, does the influence of Nekhen, once [pg 135] the capital of the kingdom of Upper Egypt. In a former lecture I have already spoken of its vulture-headed goddess Nekheb, the consort of the hawk Horus, whose temple at El-Kab guarded the outlet of the road from the Red Sea, and who was known as Mut, “the mother,” at Thebes. She was, in fact, the goddess of all Upper Egypt, whose worship had spread over it in the days when Nekhen was its ruling city. The gods of the Pharaoh followed the extension of his power. ”

“ He was almost out of sight when Hercules let fly an arrow, which had been dipped in the poison of the Hydra, with such force and so true an aim that it pierced the Centaur without touching Deianira. Nessus fell to the earth, and, feeling himself dying, said to her—
“I die for love of you; but I forgive you freely. Take my tunic; for it is of magic power. If your husband’s heart ever strays from you, bid him wear it, and his love will return to you and never wander again.” ”

“ To Naxus ward (quoth Bacchus tho) set ship upon the fome.
There would I have yow harbrough take, for Naxus is my home.
Like perjurde Caitifs by the Sea and all the Gods thereof,
They falsly sware it should be so, and therewithall in scoffe
They bade me hoyse up saile and go. Upon the righter hand
I cast about to fetch the winde, for so did Naxus stand.
What meanst? art mad? Opheltes cride, and therewithall begun
A feare of loosing of their pray through every man to run. ”

“ Be they with thee, so that they be with me to listen to Sutu invoking the Powers of Nechen: “Be it granted to me that I may make my entry among the Powers of Nechen.”
I know the Powers of Nechen: they are Horus, Tuamāutef, and Kebhsenuf.
Notes. 1. Nechen, the chief hieroglyphic variants of which are , , and , was situated in the third nome ( Ten) of Upper Egypt, and was called by the Greeks Hieracōnpolis, ‘city of the Hawks,’ from the hawk-headed divinities mentioned in this chapter as Powers of Nechen, and of which numberless pictures are found on the monuments. ”

“ Then Heracles leveled his bow and he shot at Nessus. Arrow after arrow he shot into the centaur’s body. Nessus loosed his [pg 256] hold on Deianira, and he lay down on the bank of the river, his lifeblood streaming from him.
Then Nessus, dying, but with his rage against Heracles unabated, thought of a way by which the hero might be made to suffer for the death he had brought upon him. He called to Deianira, and she, seeing he could do her no more hurt, came close to him. He told her that in repentance for his attack upon her he would bestow a great gift upon her. ”

“ And because he could not reply to what the Patriarch had written, he spread abroad the report that the Easterns were one with Nestorius, and therefore were to be called 'Nestorians.' And this name has been applied to them from that day up to the present time, and they find it difficult to cast it off, and cannot get rid of it, although they dislike it, because it takes its rise from a man who was not one of them, whom they never saw, one who was not of their language, neither their Patriarch, who was young and they old in the faith. ”

“ How should the Centaur, in his agony,
Have sought to serve her that had caused his death?
He could not. To avenge him on the hand
That sped the shaft he cozened me, and I
See his fell purpose when it is too late.
I, if my boding soul deceive me not,
Alone shall be my hero's murderess.
That by which Nessus died was Chiron's bane,
Immortal though he was, all animals
Struck by it die; and shall not the dark blood,
That, poisoned by it, flowed from Nessus' wound,
Be fatal to my lord? Surely it will.
But if my lord miscarry, my resolve
Is fixed to keep him company in death. ”

“ Nessus’s blood-smeared robe proved fatal to Hercules.
Nestor (Nes′tor) . A grandson of Neptune, his father [Pg 95] being Neleus, and his mother Chloris. Homer makes him one of the greatest of the Greek heroes. He was present at the famous battle between the Lapithae and the Centaurs, and took a leading part in the Trojan war.
“... Here’s Nestor
Instructed by the antiquary times,
He must, he is, he cannot but be wise.”
Shakespeare.
Nicephorus (Niceph′orus) . A name of Jupiter, meaning the bearer of victory.
Nidhogg (Nid′hogg) . In Scandinavian mythology the dragon who dwells in Nastrond. ”

“ Nisus, the bold, stood warder of the gate,
The son of Hyrtacus, whom Ida fair,
The huntress, on Æneas sent to wait,
Quick with light arrows and the flying spear.
Beside him stood Euryalus, his fere;
Scarce on his cheeks the down of manhood grew,
The comeliest youth that donned the Trojan gear.
Love made them one; as one, to fight they flew, 199 As one they guard the gates, companions tried and true.
XXIV . Then Nisus: "Is it that the Gods inspire,
Euryalus, this fever of the breast?
Or make we gods of but a wild desire? ”

“ This Negus evidently is not so sweet as usual: a little punch-in' his head would do him some good. At all events this Negus must be stirred up and taken down pretty sharply.
THE TOWN MOUSE'S TRIALS.
[Dr. Milner Fothergill has published a pamphlet on The Effects of Town Life upon the Human Body.]
O Doctor Milner Fothergill, it's hard to hear you state,
That people who must dwell in towns will all deteriorate;
We all live at too fast a rate, and ought to be more placid,
And, like the Ichthyosaurus, we develop too much acid. ”

“ Neju toyed with a new grass shoot, rubbing it between his fingers. He rumbled deep in his chest to break the silence. "We must move further into the forest. Wait for the god-men and the demons to go away. We cannot fight." ”

“ The Magician was watching the crowd, and he saw how the sight of the King’s good face and the sound of his good voice were working on their hearts that had once loved him. Now Negretti sprang forward. “One word, brother!” he cried, and led the King into the shadow of a close-clipped yew-tree walk. The moment they were hidden he caught his brother’s arm and whispered a wicked spell: and the first words of it were in Persian, and the next in Greek, and after that came words in Arabic and Spanish, and the speech of the county of Essex, and the last words of all were “be changed to a stone.” ”

“ Therefore, Nietzsche undertook an inquiry into the nature of the gods set up by the Greeks, and particularly into the nature of the two gods who controlled the general scheme of Greek life, and, in consequence, of Greek art,—for art, as we have seen, is [Pg 67] nothing more or less than a race's view or opinion of itself, i.e. an expression of the things it sees and the conclusions it draws when it observes and considers itself. These gods were Apollo and Dionysus. ”

“ An ex-Emir of Cairo, who had become Abouna of Ethiopia, and a man of low birth named Kassa, who had been anointed Negus under the name of Theodoros, joined forces to persecute the Catholics, drive out the missionaries,and put them to death. The Negus Johannes IV, who succeeded Theodoros, followed in his predecessor's footsteps. His reign of twenty years was a time of trouble and suffering for the Catholics of Abyssinia. At last, however, Menelik, the king of Shoa, who became Negus and was crowned in March, 1889, restored tranquility to the missions. ”

“ The great Nichus is, as we have seen, the master, the despot, the Wassermann, par excellence, of all this watery, dark world, peopled by Nixen and Undines. His authority is, moreover, by no means limited to the exercise of judicial functions; his will, constantly under the influence of an ill-regulated appetite, is law for everybody; the male Nixen are his Court, and his harem is kept full by the fairest among those women who become his own by suicide. ”

“ When His Eminence protested this, we were certain the Spirit had possessed him, so we beat him one hour out of two—"
Jenkins winced as the accounting of cabalistic clap-trap continued. His Eminence, he reflected, must have had the constitution of an ox. He glanced over at the panting figure on the bed. "But doesn't anybody ever recover from this?"
"Oh, yes—if the Spirit that afflicts them is very small. Those are the fortunate ones. They grow hot and sick, but they still can eat and drink—" The wizard broke off to stare at the bottle-and-tube arrangement Jenkins had prepared. ”

“ Nessus said; “the sides seem to get steeper and steeper, and we may find ourselves caught in a trap at the end of this gorge. At any rate we will try that way first. I wish the moon was up; it is as black as a wolf's mouth here, and the bottom of the gorge is all covered with boulders. If we stumble, and our arms strike a stone, it will be heard by the natives on the opposite heights.” ”

“ And now I am already on the point to depart, and daily I pray to God to dismiss me—me whose eyes have seen his salvation. Farewell Desert, my friend, mine upbringer and my place of sojourning, and thou Exile, my mother, who after my death shalt keep my body until the resurrection comes in the time of God's pleasure! Amen.
We knew previously that Nestorius had to endure many sufferings during his exile. Evagrius, as I said above, hands down to us fragments of two letters of Nestorius to the governor of Thebais [34] . ”

“ Nixen proper, who are former pagan deities and not too much to be dreaded, and female Nixen, almost always harmless and at times even useful.
It is these latter only of whom we shall hereafter speak as Undines.
The Nixen of the first class are ever ready to assume any disguise that may aid them in attaining their purpose. Some of them roam about in deserted places near the banks of rivers; others have at times appeared in the neighboring towns, pretending to be foreign ladies of distinction, or artists, generally great performers on the harp. ”

“ He was the son of Nox, by Erebus;—and Erebus, according to different accounts, was not only Nox’s husband, but her brother,—and even her son, by Chaos;—and Mors was daughter of Somnus, by that devil of a Goddess Nox, the mother of his father and himself!—The heathen Deities held our canonical notions in utter contempt; and must have laugh’d at the idea (which, surely, nobody does now,) of forbidding a man to marry his Grandmother. Return
Vide Lord Chesterfield’s Letters.—This noble Author, by the by, has set his dignified face against risibility. ”