The Temple (Lovecraft short story)

Did You Know?

• An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia judges the story "marred by crude satire on the protagonist's militarist and chauvinist sentiments" and by "an excess of supernaturalism".
• Manga artist Gou Tanabe's adaptation of "The Temple" changes the time period to World War II.

Plot

The story is presented as a found manuscript by Karl Heinrich, Graf von Altberg-Ehrenstein, a lieutenant-commander in the Imperial German Navy during World War I. After sinking a British freighter and its lifeboats, the arrogant Altberg orders his U-boat to submerge. When it surfaces, the crew finds the body of a seaman clinging to the exterior railing; a search reveals a strange piece of carved ivory. An officer keeps the object, and soon strange phenomena occur, including the dead man appearing to swim away. An uncharted current pulls the sub southward, and crew members suffer fatigue and nightmares; one claims to see dead seamen staring through portholes. Altberg has the man whipped and later executes several crewmen who go insane. A mysterious explosion damages the engines, and after encountering an American warship, Altberg kills more men who urge surrender. During a violent storm, he orders the sub to submerge, but the ballast tanks fail, leaving the vessel sinking deeper and being pulled southward, never to see daylight again.

Connections

The submerged city and its inhuman worshippers, a theme Lovecraft would revisit in "The Call of Cthulhu" and "The Shadow over Innsmouth," first appears in this nautical story set during World War I. A role-playing game sequel, "The City in the Sea," was published by Chaosium in 1987 within "Cthulhu Now," sending players by submersible to confront Gloon, the Mythos deity behind the story's events, whose human form is the ivory carving. The 1995 video game "Prisoner of Ice" also features a submarine setting, but shifts the action to World War II. Rjurik Davidson's 2001 story "The Deep" transplants the plot into the Warhammer Fantasy universe. Manga artist Gou Tanabe adapted "The Temple" in 2009, moving the timeframe to World War II; this adaptation was collected with his versions of "The Hound" and "The Nameless City" in 2014, and released in English by Dark Horse Comics in 2017. Canadian animator Alain Fournier produced an animated short film adaptation in 2022.