• The magic potion

  • Jul 15 2024
  • Length: 10 mins
  • Podcast

The magic potion

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  • Summary

  • The enchanting of liquids to create magical potions has been a practice within literary fantasy culture for millennia. In Homer's Odyssey, Circe, the goddess skilled in potions, rituals, and metamorphosis, serves as the specialist in the art of pharmakon, a term encompassing remedies that can be both poisonous and medicinal, just like medicinal plants, drugs, and magical potions themselves. After administering her poisoned concoction to Odysseus' crew, she transforms them all into beasts – all except Odysseus.The hero receives help from Hermes. Hermes grants him the effects of another, beneficial medicine: the moly plant. This plant has a black root and a white flower resembling milk, and only gods could effortlessly pluck it from the ground.Here's a quote from the text: "'Behold,' Hermes said, 'go to the houses of Circe with this beneficial medicine, which the mortal day can remove from your head. I will reveal to you all Circe's deadly wiles. She will make a drink for you, she will throw poisons into the food, but even in this way she will not be able to bewitch you: the beneficial medicine that I will give you will prevent it, and I will reveal everything to you.' (...) 'He handed me the medicine, tearing it from the ground and showed me its nature. Black was the root and the flower similar to milk. The gods call it moly, and it is hard for mortal men to tear it away: but the gods can do anything.'"
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