Nyarlathotep - H.P. Lovecraft

"Nyarlathotep" is a prose poem by H. P. Lovecraft. It was written in 1920 and first saw publication in that year's November issue of The United Amateur. The poem itself is a bleak view of human civilization in decline, and it explores the mixed sensations of desperation and defiance in a dying society.

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Episode Transcript

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Nigher Lathotep by H. P.Lovecraft Niha Lathotep, the crawling chaos.
I am the last I will tellthe audient void. I do not recall
distinctly when it began, but itwas months ago. The general tension was
horrible. To a season of politicaland social upheaval. Was added a strange

(00:24):
and brooding apprehension of hideous physical danger, a danger widespread in all embracing such
a danger as may be imagined onlyin the most terrible phantasms of the night.
I recall that the people went aboutwith pale and worried faces, and
whispered warnings and prophecies which no onedared consciously repeat or acknowledged to himself that

(00:46):
he had heard. A sense ofmonstrous guilt was upon the land, and
out of the abysses between the starsswept chill currents that made men shiver in
dark and lonely places. There wasa demonaic alteration in the secrets of the
seasons. The autumn heat lingered fearsomely, and everyone felt that the world and

(01:07):
perhaps the universe, had passed fromthe control of known gods or forces to
that of gods or forces which wereunknown, And it was then that Nia
Lathotep came out of Egypt. Whohe was none could tell, but he
was of the old native blood andlooked like a pharaoh. The Felaheen knelt
when they saw him, yet couldnot say why. He said he had

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risen up out of the blackness oftwenty seven centuries, and that he had
heard messages from places not on thisplanet. Into the lands of civilization came
Nia Lathotep, swarthy, slender,and sinister, always buying strange instruments of
glass and metal and combining them intoinstruments yet stranger. He spoke much of

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the sciences of electricity and psychology,and gave exhibitions of power which sent his
spectators away speechless, yet which swelledhis fame to exceeding magnitude. Men advised
one another to see Nia Lathotep andshuddered, And where Nia Lathtep went,
rest vanished, for the small hourswere rent with the screams of nightmare.

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Never before had the screams of nightmarebeen such a public problem. Now the
wise men almost wished they could forbidsleep in the small hours, that the
shrieks of cities might less horribly disturbthe pale, pitying moon as it glimmered
on green waters, gliding under bridgesand old steeples crumbling against a sickly sky.

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I remember when nia Leithotep came tomy city, the great, the
Old, the terrible city of unnumberedcrimes. My friend had told me of
him, and of the impelling fascinationand allurement of his revelations, and I
burned with eagerness to explore his uttermostmysteries. My friends said they were horrible,

(03:00):
impressive, beyond my most fevered imaginings. And what was thrown on a
screen in the darkened room prophesied things. None but nihre Athotepe dared prophecy.
And in the sputter of his sparks, there was taken from men that which
had never been taken before yet,which showed only in the eyes. And
I heard it hinted abrawl that thosewho knew Nirelathotep looked on sights which others

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saw not. It was in thehot autumn that I went through the night
with the restless crowd to see nirelAthotep, through the stifling night, and
up the endless stairs into the chokingroom, and shadowed on a screen,
I saw hooded forms amidst ruins,and yellow evil faces peering from behind fallen

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monuments, and I saw the worldbattling against blackness, against the ways of
destruction from ultimate space, whirling,churning, struggling around the dimming, cooling
sun. Then the sparks played amazinglyaround the hill of the spectators, and
hair stood up on end, whilstshadows more grotesque than I can tell,
came out and squatted on the heads. And when I, who was colder

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and more scientific than the rest,mumbled a trembling protest about imposture and static
electricity, Nirolethotep drove us all outdown the dizzy stairs into the damp,
hot, deserted midnight streets. Iscreamed aloud that I was not afraid,
that I never could be afraid,and others screamed with me. For solace.

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We swore to one another that thecity was exactly the same and still
alive. And when the electric lightsbegan to fade, we cursed the company
over and over again and laughed atthe queer faces we made. I believe
we felt something coming down from thegreenish moon. For when we began to

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depend on its light, we driftedinto curious and voluntary marching formations, and
seemed to know our destinations, thoughwe dared not think of them. Once
we looked at the pavement and foundthe blocks loose and displaced by grass,
with scarce a line of rusted metalto shoe where the tramways had run.
And again we saw a tramcar lonewindowless, dilapidated and almost on its side.

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When we gazed around the horizon,we could not find the third tower
by the river, had noticed thatthe silhouette of the second tower was ragged
at the top. Then we splitup into narrow columns, each of which
seemed drawn in a different direction.One disappeared in a narrow alley to the
left, leaving only the echo ofa shocking mon. Another file down a

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weed choked subway entrance, howling witha laughter that was mad. My own
column was sucked toward the open country, and presently I felt a shield which
was not of the hot autumn.For as we stalked out on the dark
moor, we beheld around us thehellish moon, glitter of evil, snowsless
inexplicable snows swept asunder in one directiononly where lay a gulf, all the

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blacker for its glittering walls. Thecolumn seemed very thin. Indeed, as
it plodded dreamily into the gulf,I lingered behind, for the black rift
and the green litten snow was frightful, and I thought I had heard the
reverberations of a disquietening whale as mycompanions vanished. But my power to linger

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was slight, as if beckoned bythose who had gone before. I half
floated between the Titanic snow drifts,quivering and afraid, into the sightless vortex
of the unimaginable, screamingly sentient,dumbly delirious, only the gods that were
until a sickened sensitive shadow, writhingin hands that are not hands, and

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whirled blindly past ghastly midnights of rottingcreation corpses of dead worlds with sores that
were cities, charnel winds that brushedthe pallid star ours and make them flicker
low beyond the world's vague ghosts ofmonstrous things have seen columns of unsanctified temples
that rest on nameless rocks, beneathspace and reach up to dizzy vacua,

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above the spheres of light and darkness, and through this revolting graveyard of the
universe. The muffled, maddening beatingof drums and thin, monotonous whine of
blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambersbeyond time. The detestable pounding and piping,
wherein to dance slowly, awkwardly andabsurdly. The gigantic, temperous ultimate

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gods, the blind, voiceless,mindless gargoyles, whose soul is nirolathotep end of Nirolathotepe