Shirt of Nessus

In Greek mythology, the Shirt of Nessus, Tunic of Nessus, Nessus-robe, or Nessus' shirt was the poisoned shirt that killed Heracles. It was once a popular reference in literature. In folkloristics, it is considered an instance of the "poison dress" motif.

In Greek mythology, it is the shirt (chiton) daubed with the tainted blood of the centaur Nessus that Deianeira, Heracles' wife, naïvely gave Heracles, burning him, and driving him to throw himself onto a funeral pyre.

Metaphorically, it represents "a source of misfortune from which there is no escape; a fatal present; anything that wounds the susceptibilities" or a "destructive or expiatory force or influence".

During the anabaptist Münster Rebellion of 1534 a fifteen-year-old girl named Hille Feyken (or Feiken) attempted to deceive Münster’s Prince-Bishop Franz von Waldeck who had been commanding a protracted siege of the city. Her plan was to pretend to defect and entice the Bishop with information about the cities' defenses while giving him a handsome shirt soaked in poison. Before her plan could be carried out she was betrayed by another defector who warned the bishop and Feyken was tortured and then killed.

Major-General Henning von Tresckow, one of the primary conspirators in the July 20 plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, famously referred to the "Robe of Nessus" following the realization that the assassination plot had failed and that he and others involved in the conspiracy would lose their lives as a result: "None of us can complain about our own deaths. Everyone who joined our circle put on the 'Robe of Nessus'."

In Act 4.12 of Shakespeare's play Antony and Cleopatra, Mark Antony is in a rage after losing the Battle of Actium and exclaims, "The shirt of Nessus is upon me."

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