kaufman (02/26/83)
Does anyone out in netland want to speculate on why Niven named Nessus, the puppeteer we see most of (off the top of my head, he appears in The Soft Weapon in Neutron Star, and in Ringworld, and is one of three puppeteers that Niven even bothers to name) after a centaur? My translation of Dante's Inferno, where I discovered this, says that Nessus was the centaur who seduced Hercules's wife, and when Hercules had mortally wounded him, soaked a cloak in his (Nessus's) blood and gave it to his (Hercules's) wife, telling her it was a love charm. When Hercules started running after some other woman, his wife gave him the cloak to win him back. Hercules put it on and died in agony. This doesn't really seem like a legacy that a puppeteer would willingly tie himself to; I was especially surprised because Nessus was on one of the levels of Hell reserved for the violent (well, maybe it does apply to Nessus - but would he choose that name?). Hoping for a lively discussion, David Kaufman ...!decvax!yale-comix!kaufman (USENET) Sp.Kaufman@Mit-Speech (ARPAnet, during break)