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Our ancestors may have thought it as well to combine the old charm of rue and the new Christian potency of holy water. Thus there would be a distinct analogy between Homeric moly and English 'herb of grace. 'Euphrasy and rue' were employed to purge and purify mortal eyes. Pliny is very learned about the magical virtues of rue.
This identification of moly with mandrake is probably based on Homer's remark that moly is 'hard to dig. The black root and white flower of moly are quite unlike the yellow flower and white fleshy root ascribed by Pliny to mandrake. Only confusion is caused by regarding the two magical herbs as identical. But why are any herbs or roots magical?
Brown thinks it not too rash to infer that the Cappadocian use of the word 'moly' is not derived from the Greeks, but from the Accadians. Now in Accadian, according to Mr. Mr.
So much for mandragora, which, like the healing potato, has to be acquired stealthily and with peril. Now let us examine the Homeric herb moly. The plant is thus introduced by Homer: In the tenth book of the 'Odyssey, Circe has turned Odysseus's men into swine. He sets forth to rescue them, trusting only to his sword. The plant is described by Homer with some minuteness.
Why Stanley was not immediately effaced is still a matter of controversy. Hood, who was early on the ground, declared that he gave the needful orders and tried vainly to enforce them; Cheatham, in command of his leading corps, that he did not. Doubtless the dispute is still being carried on between these chieftains from their beds of asphodel and moly in Elysium.
They are not "superior" like Romola, nor flighty and destitute of taste like Maggie Tulliver; among Fielding's crowd of fribbles and sots and oafs they carry that pure moly of the Lady in "Comus."
All that we do know in this case is, that four hundred years after Christ the dwellers in Cappadocia employed a word 'moly, which had been Greek for at least twelve hundred years. But Mr.
To half the virtues of the vegetable world mankind are yet in the darkness of the savages I have supposed. There are faculties within us with which certain herbs have affinity, and over which they have power. The moly of the ancients was not all a fable." One evening, Glyndon had lingered alone and late upon the ramparts, watching the stars as, one by one, they broke upon the twilight.
"A small unsightly root, But of divine effect. Unknown, and like esteem'd, and the dull swain Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon; And yet more med'cinal is it than that moly That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave; He call'd it haemony, and gave it me, And bade me keep it as of sovran use 'Gainst all enchantments, mildew, blast, or damp, Or ghastly furies' apparition.
The moly is a small unsightly root, its virtues but little known and in low estimation; the dull shepherd treads on it every day with his clouted shoes; but it bears a small white flower, which is medicinal against charms, blights, mildews, and damps.
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