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Middlemarch vocabulary
10 mythology vocabulary words
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Nemesis
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synonyms: Rhamnousia, Invidia ???
tags: [mythology]
► definition
Definition:the goddess of retribution against those who dare to be too arrogant
► uses
Uses:
Nemesis lured [Narcissus] to a pool where he saw his own reflection in the water and fell in love with it, not realizing it was only an image. He was unable to leave the beauty of his reflection and he eventually died. Nemesis believed that no one should ever have too much good, and she had always cursed those who were blessed with countless gifts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis_(mythology)#Acts_and_deeds, last edited on 16 July 2017
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there is the terrible Nemesis following on some errors, that it is always possible for those who like it to interpret them into a crime: there is no proof in favor of the man outside his own consciousness and assertion.”
George Eliot. Middlemarch.
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I know some persons, who, without being generally the devotees of superstition, are apt to apprehend that great and unusual peace or tranquillity will be attended with its opposite. For which reason the antients used, on such occasions, to sacrifice to the goddess Nemesis, a deity who was thought by them to look with an invidious eye on human felicity, and to have a peculiar delight in overturning it.
Henry Fielding. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749)
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when he praised them to their faces; and he recollected, too, that most fetichistic races believe in Nemesis— that is to say, in jealous gods, who, if they see you love a child too much, or admire it too greatly, will take it from you or do it some grievous bodily harm, such as blinding it or maiming it, in order to pay you out for thinking yourself too fortunate.
Grant Allen. The British Barbarians.
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