Nyarlathotep
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Nyarlathotep (the Crawling Chaos) is a fictional character in the Cthulhu Mythos. He is the creation of H. P. Lovecraft and first appeared in his prose poem "Nyarlathotep" (1920). The being is one of the cosmic Outer Gods and appears in numerous stories by Lovecraft. Nyarlathotep is also featured in the works of other authors, as well as in role-playing games based on the Cthulhu Mythos.
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[edit] Nyarlathotep in Lovecraft
Nyarlathotep's first appearance is in the eponymous short story by Lovecraft (1920), in which he is described as a "tall, swarthy man" who resembles an Egyptian pharaoh. In this story he wanders the earth, seemingly gathering legions of followers through his demonstrations of strange and seemingly magical instruments, the narrator of the story among them. These followers lose awareness of the world around them, and through the narrator's increasingly unreliable accounts the reader gets a sense of the world's utter collapse. The story ends with the narrator as part of an army of servants for Nyarlathotep.
Nyarlathotep (usually referred to in conjunction with the subnomen, "The Crawling Chaos") subsequently appears as a major character in "The Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath" (1926/27), in which he again manifests in the form of an Egyptian Pharaoh when he confronts protagonist Randolph Carter.
The twenty-first sonnet of Lovecraft's poem-cycle "Fungi from Yuggoth" (1929/30) — not to be confused with the entities identified as the fungi from Yuggoth, or Mi-Go in "The Whisperer in Darkness" — is dedicated to Nyarlathotep and is substantially a poetic retelling of the short story "Nyarlathotep."
In "The Dreams in the Witch House" (1933), Nyarlathotep appears to Walter Gilman and witch Keziah Mason (who has made a pact with the entity) in the form of "the 'Black Man' of the witch-cult," a black-skinned avatar of the Devil associated with New England witchcraft lore.
Finally, in "The Haunter of the Dark" (1936), the tentacled, bat-winged, dark-loving monster dwelling in the steeple of the Starry Wisdom sect's church is identified as another form, or manifestation of, Nyarlathotep.
Though Nyarlathotep appears as a character in only four stories and two sonnets (which is more than any other Great Old Ones or Outer Gods), his name is mentioned frequently in numerous others. For example, in "The Whisperer in Darkness" Nyarlathotep's name is spoken frequently by the fungi from Yuggoth in a reverential or ritual sense, indicating that they worship or honor the entity.
Despite similarities in theme and name, Nyarlathotep does not feature at all in Lovecraft's story "The Crawling Chaos," (1920/21) an apocalyptic narrative written in collaboration with Elizabeth Berkeley.
[edit] Inspiration
In a 1921 letter to Reinhardt Kleiner, Lovecraft related the dream he had had — described as "the most realistic and horrible [nightmare] I have experienced since the age of ten" — that served as the basis for his prose poem "Nyarlathotep". In the dream, he received a letter from his friend Samuel Loveman that read:
- Don't fail to see Nyarlathotep if he comes to Providence. He is horrible — horrible beyond anything you can imagine — but wonderful. He haunts one for hours afterward. I am still shuddering at what he showed.
Lovecraft commented:
- I had never heard the name NYARLATHOTEP before, but seemed to understand the allusion. Nyarlathotep was a kind of itinerant showman or lecturer who held forth in public halls and aroused widespread fear and discussion with his exhibitions. These exhibitions consisted of two parts — first, a horrible — possibly prophetic — cinema reel; and later some extraordinary experiments with scientific and electrical apparatus. As I received the letter, I seemed to recall that Nyarlathotep was already in Providence.... I seemed to remember that persons had whispered to me in awe of his horrors, and warned me not to go near him. But Loveman's dream letter decided me.... As I left the house I saw throngs of men plodding through the night, all whispering affrightedly and bound in one direction. I fell in with them, afraid yet eager to see and hear the great, the obscure, the unutterable Nyarlathotep.[1]
Will Murray suggests that this dream image of Nyarlathotep may have been inspired by the inventor Nikola Tesla, whose well-attended lectures did involve extraordinary experiments with electrical apparatus and whom some saw as a sinister figure.[2]
Robert M. Price proposes that the name Nyarlathotep may have been subconsciously suggested to Lovecraft by two names from Lord Dunsany, an author he much admired: Alhireth-Hotep, a false prophet from Dunsany's The Gods of Pegana, and Mynarthitep, a god described as "angry" in his "The Sorrow of Search".[3]
[edit] Summary
Nyarlathotep differs from the other beings in a number of ways. Most of them are exiled to stars, like Yog-Sothoth and Hastur, or sleeping and dreaming like Cthulhu; Nyarlathotep, however, is active and frequently walks the Earth in the guise of a human being, usually a tall, slim, joyous man. He has "a thousand" other forms, most of these reputed to be maddeningly horrific. Most of the Outer Gods have their own cults serving them; Nyarlathotep seems to serve these cults and take care of their affairs in their absence. Most of them use strange alien languages, while Nyarlathotep uses human languages and can be mistaken for a human being. Finally, most of them are all powerful yet purposeless, yet Nyarlathotep seems to be deliberately deceptive and manipulative, and even uses propaganda to achieve his goals. In this regard, he is probably the most human-like among them.
Nyarlathotep enacts the will of the Outer Gods, and is their messenger, heart and soul; he is also a servant of Azathoth, whose wishes he immediately fulfills. Unlike the other Outer Gods, causing madness is more important and enjoyable than death and destruction to Nyarlathotep. It is suggested by some that he will destroy the human race and possibly the earth as well. [4]
[edit] Quotations
And it was then that Nyarlathotep came out of Egypt. Who he was, none could tell, but he was of the old native blood and looked like a Pharaoh. The fellahin knelt when they saw him, yet could not say why. He said he had risen up out of the blackness of twenty-seven centuries, and that he had heard messages from places not on this planet. Into the lands of civilisation came Nyarlathotep, swarthy, slender, and sinister, always buying strange instruments of glass and metal and combining them into instruments yet stranger. He spoke much of the sciences - of electricity and psychology - and gave exhibitions of power which sent his spectators away speechless, yet which swelled his fame to exceeding magnitude. Men advised one another to see Nyarlathotep, and shuddered. And where Nyarlathotep went, rest vanished; for the small hours were rent with the screams of a nightmare.
—H. P. Lovecraft, Nyarlathotep
And through this revolting graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous ultimate gods — the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep.
—H. P. Lovecraft, Nyarlathotep
It was the eldritch scurrying of those fiend-born rats, always questing for new horrors, and determined to lead me on even unto those grinning caverns of earth's centre where Nyarlathotep, the mad faceless god, howls blindly to the piping of two amorphous idiot flute-players.
—H. P. Lovecraft, The Rats in the Walls
What his fate would be, he did not know; but he felt that he was held for the coming of that frightful soul and messenger of infinity's Other Gods, the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep.
—H. P. Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
There was the immemorial figure of the deputy or messenger of hidden and terrible powers - the "Black Man" of the witch cult, and the "Nyarlathotep" of the Necronomicon.
—H. P. Lovecraft, The Dreams in the Witch House
[edit] The Nyarlathotep Cycle
In 1996, Chaosium published The Nyarlathotep Cycle, a Cthulhu Mythos anthology focusing on works referring to or inspired by the entity Nyarlathotep. Edited by Lovecraft scholar Robert M. Price, the book includes an introduction by Price tracing the roots and development of the God of a Thousand Forms. The contents include:
- "Alhireth-Hotep the Prophet" by Lord Dunsany
- "The Sorrow of Search" by Lord Dunsany
- "Nyarlathotep" by H. P. Lovecraft
- "The Second Coming" (poem) by William Butler Yeats
- "Silence Falls on Mecca’s Walls" (poem) by Robert E. Howard
- "Nyarlathotep" (poem) by H. P. Lovecraft
- "The Dreams in the Witch House" by H. P. Lovecraft
- "The Haunter of the Dark" by H. P. Lovecraft
- "The Dweller in Darkness" by August Derleth
- "The Titan in the Crypt" by J. G. Warner
- "Fane of the Black Pharaoh" by Robert Bloch
- "Curse of the Black Pharaoh" by Lin Carter
- "The Curse of Nephren-Ka" by John Cockroft
- "The Temple of Nephren-Ka" by Philip J. Rahman & Glenn A. Rahman
- "The Papyrus of Nephren-Ka" by Robert C. Culp
- "The Snout in the Alcove" by Gary Myers
- "The Contemplative Sphinx" (poem) by Richard Tierney
- "Ech-Pi-El’s Ægypt" (poems) by Ann K. Schwader
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- Harms, Daniel. "Nyarlathotep" in The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana (2nd ed.), pp. 218–222. Oakland, CA: Chaosium, 1998. ISBN 1-56882-119-0.
[edit] Notes
- ^ H. P. Lovecraft, letter to Reinhardt Kleiner, December 21, 1921; cited in Lin Carter, Lovecraft: A Look Behind the Cthulhu Mythos, pp. 18-19.
- ^ Will Murray, "Behind the Mask of Nyarlathotep", Lovecraft Studies No. 25 (Fall 1991); cited in Robert M. Price, The Nyarlathotep Cycle, p. 9.
- ^ Price, p. vii, 1-5.
- ^ Harms, "Nyarlathotep", The Encyclopedia Cthulhiana, pp. 218–9.
[edit] External links
- "Nyarlathotep", the original prose poem by H. P. Lovecraft
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