Search over 40,000 articles from the original, classic Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th Edition.
|
See also:MOLY (Gr. mu Xu)
, a mysterious plant with magical See also:powers described in See also:Homer, Odyssey, x
.
302-306
.
See also:Hermes pulls it up and gives it to See also:Odysseus as a See also:protection against the arts of See also:Circe
.
It is further described as " having a See also:black See also:root and a See also:flower like See also:milk, and hard for mortals to pull up." There has been much controversy as to the See also:identification
.
Philippe Champault—Pheniciens et Grecs en Italie d'apres l'Odyssee (1906),pp
.
504 seq.—decides in favour of the Peganum harmala (of the See also:order Rutaceae), the Syrian or See also:African See also:rue (Gr. irir'avov), from the husks of which the See also:vegetable See also:alkaloid harmaline (C1aH14N20) is extracted
.
The See also:flowers are See also: Rev . (Dec . Igoe), p . 434, who illustrates the Homeric See also:account by passages in the See also:Paris and See also:Leiden magical papyri, and argues that See also:moly is probably a magical name, derived perhaps from Phoenician or See also:Egyptian See also:sources, for a plant which cannot be certainly identified . He shows that the " difficulty of pulling up " the plant is not a merely See also:physical one, but rather connected with the See also:peculiar powers claimed by magicians . In See also:Tennyson's See also:Lotus Eaters the moly is coupled with the See also:amaranth (" propt on beds of amaranth and moly ") . |
|
|
[back] MOLUCCAS, or SPICE ISLANDS |
[next] MOLYBDENITE |
There are no comments yet for this article.
Do not copy, download, transfer, or otherwise replicate the site content in whole or in part.
Links to articles and home page are encouraged.