0000NOTNeleus_Travers

0000NOTNeleus_Travers

P.L. Travers, illustrations by Mary Shepard and Agnes Sims, Mary Poppins Opens the Door (Harcourt: San Diego, 1997; reprint of 1943 original), 101.

Plot summary: "Mary Poppins returns to the Banks family in a rocket and involves the Banks children in more magical adventures, including those with Peppermint Horses, the Marble Boy, and the Cat That Looked at the King." (tp-verso)

In Chapter Four, "The Marble Boy," the Banks children become involved with a magically animated statue in the park.

In real life, near Hyde Park Corner, in the area known as the Rose Garden, stands a marble sculpture with functionally precise likeness to that depicted in the Shepard/Sims illustration. That marble boy, though, is not named. It would seem that Travers knew the anonymous sculpture but herself asserted a telling name. (Macfarlane)

See: Encylcopedia of World Biography

A man reads on a park bench beside a statue of Nereus, with text below describing a scene with Mary Poppins

Mythologically, Neleus is hardly a central figure. Twin of Pelias, sons of Poseidon and Tyro whom the god seduced in the likeness of the river-god Enipeus. The boys are exposed as infants but saved by a mare (sent by Poseidon) who suckles them. Pelias becomes father of Alcestis, and Neleus founds Pylos and fathers Nestor and Periclymenos. At Pylos Neleus refuses to purify Heracles and later suffers the hero's retaliation. (Apollodorus 1.9.8, 2.6.2-3)

The sculpture and its animation figure prominently in the West End-to-Broadway musical Mary Poppins (2004: R and R Shermans' 1964 Disney music and lyrics augmented by G. Stiles and A. Drewe; book by Julian Fellowes). ibdb

BYU undergraduate Liz Sands argued in W2008 that Neleus in the musical becomes a "thinking tool for the importance of charity."

RTM: Perhaps Neleus is an artifact of abiding youth: loquacious Nestorian old-age (like what confines George Banks) was preceded once and is evermore by a youthful sprite.

For further digging: Teya Rosenberg's project; Travers Papers at Mitchell Library, New South Wales.