Literary notes about Nemesis (AI summary)
Literary authors invoke "nemesis" to signify an inescapable force of retribution that punishes pride, greed, or moral transgression. Rooted in classical mythology as the goddess of divine justice [1][2], the term has evolved to encompass both literal and metaphorical adversaries. In some narratives, Nemesis is an almost personified embodiment of fate that tracks down those who overstep human bounds [3][4], while in others, it becomes a symbol for the ineluctable backlash against corrupted ambition or misplaced desires [5][6]. This multifaceted usage underscores its role as the arbiter of balance, ensuring that excess and hubris are eventually subdued by a clinical, all-encompassing judgment.
- [120] Nemesis , a Greek female deity, goddess of retribution, who visited the righteous anger of the gods upon mortals.
— from Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson by Ralph Waldo Emerson - Jude 7; sentence of punishment, judgment, Ac. 25.15; personified, the goddess of justice or vengeance, Nemesis, Pœna, Ac. 28.4.
— from A Greek-English Lexicon to the New Testament by William Greenfield - The tyrants, who would have disgraced the society of gods and men, were thrown headlong, by the inexorable Nemesis, into the Tartarean abyss.
— from The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon - An avenging Nemesis pursues this headlong hunt for wealth; there is no worse paid class anywhere.
— from How the Other Half Lives: Studies Among the Tenements of New York by Jacob A. Riis - Nemesis is a greedy woman who sells herself to the highest bidder; he curses her avarice, but he loves her and cannot live unless she loves him.
— from On Love by Stendhal - The working of Nemesis he finds in the disasters that befall men and nations whose towering prosperity awakens the jealousy of the gods.
— from An Account of Egypt by Herodotus
