We explain what nemesis is, what is the origin of this term in Greek culture and some examples of its use.
What is nemesis?
The word nemesis comes from the ancient Greek culture, in which he gave his name to the goddess also known as Ramnusia (from Ramnonte, an ancient Greek settlement near the town of Attica, nowadays an archaeological site), and which represented the solidarity, retribution, vindictive justice, balance and fortune.
She was depicted as a winged figure, often wearing a veil or crown, holding a wheel and a sword, torch, or serpent, as instruments to exercise her punishment.
Being a primeval deity, the goddess Nemesis was above the Olympian gods, and her actions were considered inevitable and relentless. She was in charge of punishing disobedient children, those who ignored the hierarchy of command and unfaithful lovers.
She was also in charge of measuring the happiness or the misery of mortals, although his vengeful character was imposed in the weather and ended up being one of thefuries, deities closely linked to tribal and bloody passions.
Since the Greek culture did not tolerate pride and excess, considering them the only "sins" punishable by the gods, their vision of the Justice It had to do precisely with the proportional, the corresponding.
The goddess Nemesis could punish those favored by fortune, for example by snatching what was recently earned. Its practically equivalent Roman version was the goddessInvidia (envy).
It is thus explained that the word Nemesis today has the meaning of a just or divine retribution, a long postponed or expected punishment, or a form of poetic justice. It is also common to see it used as synonymous fromenemy or fromfinal.
In the first case, it is because we tend to associate enmity with the desire for revenge; and in the second because the action of justice used to be the end of the tragic representations of antiquity, or even of many contemporary stories, in which recovering the balance is, in some way, the moral.
Some examples of the use of this word are:
- "Superman is Lex Luthor's nemesis"
- "Your nemesis has arrived, now you will pay for your misdeeds!"
- "I don't think so: the day of my nemesis is still far off"
- "Sooner or later, the powerful find their nemesis"
- "I will be the nemesis of corrupt politicians"