Nemesis

[Isbell]

Nemesis can seldom forge a sword for herself out of our consciences - out of the suffering we feel in the suffering we may have caused.
To understand the above sentence is probably a nemesis for me...

[Dozy]

I think it basically means that we don't usually inflict retribution on ourselves. It's saying that the figurative weapons of Nemesis (the "sword") can't usually be manufactured from the guilt we feel about our actions. In other words, there has to be some external force of retribution too.

[Isbell]

Oh, this is great! Thanks a lot.
I still have a question regarding the word "nemesis", I think if we're to talk about the goddess of retributive justice or vengeance, we need to capitalize it; otherwise we don't. Is that true? But the following sentence capitalize it as I don't think the meaning of the word is related to the God of retributive justice...
"No, certainly; I pity him in proportion to his struggles, for they foreshadow the inward suffering which is the worst form of Nemesis."
Or is there no hard and fast rule to govern the use of that word?
Dozy, your help can never come amiss, :)

[Dozy]

The word should be capitalised when literally referring to the goddess, of course. Otherwise, it's usually uncapitalised, but really it's the author's choice. I don't think it's wrong to capitalise. It wouldn't surprise me to find that it was capitalised more often in older writing, such as the sentence you quote. In those days there was probably more of a direct connection in people's minds between the general concept and the specific mythological figure. Nowadays it has probably turned into a more generic word that people don't feel needs a capital.

[Isbell]

Thanks for the reply, Dozy. It's a perfect explanation for me.

[Dozy]

This graph is quite interesting:

http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=his+nemesis%2C+his+Nemesis&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3

[Isbell]

Love the graph and its statistics, Dozy, thanks for walking me through this.