op z'n grieksarabisch egyptischindisch chinees ed

~*~

"GAGA"
'op z'n Grieks
& op z'n Arabisch'

~@~

It
is estimated
that roughly at
the same time that
the Vedic Hymns were known
to be in use in India,
in about 800 BC
[see before in myDi!],
Homer's Odyssey
was being composed
~~
~

A
controversial question
is the one of Homer's 'nepenthe'?
IS
this drug
hashish? Some seem
to think so: they
rest their case on the testimony
of Diodorus of Sicily,
who stated that the women of Thebes
chased away their anxiety
with a drug whose active principle was hemp [cannabis sativa/indica/psychotomimetic/marihuana/psychoactive/hallucinogetic
etcetera]!

It
is well
known that 'nepenthe'
is derived from 'ne' negative
and 'penthos'
anxiety
...

WHAT
is one
to think of
this interpretation?

~@~

TELEMACHUS,
the son of
Ulysses, has just left
Ithaca to go and search
for his father.
Peisistratos,
the son of Nestor,
takes him from Pylos in Sparta,
where Menelaus receives them
hospitably
...

Telemachus
describes the siege of Troy to them
and insists on the painful losses
of the Achaeans:
"Menelaus' words
brought them all
to the brink of tears.
Helen of Argos,
child of Zeus,
broke down and wept.
Telemachus and Menelaus
did the same.
Nor could Nestor's son
keep his eyes dry when he thought
of his brother
...!"

At
this moment,
slaves are preparing
the banquet. Thus, before
the meal:
"Helen,
the child of Zeus,
had a happy thought.
Into a bowl in which their wine was mixed,
she slipped a drug that had the power of robbing grief and anger of their sting
and banishing all painful memories.
No one that swallowed this dissolved in wine
could shed a single tear that day,
even for the death of his mother and father,
or if they put his brother or his own son to the sword
and he were there
to see it
done?

This
powerful anodyne
was one of many useful drugs
which had been given to the daughter of Zeus
by an Egyptian lady,
Polydamna,
the wife of
Thon
~~
~

For
the fertile
soil of Egypt
is most rich in herbs,
many of which are wholesome in solution,
though many are poisonous:
and in medical knowledge the Egyptian
leaves the rest of the world behind!
He is a true son of Pae'eon
the Healer?
"When
Helen had
thrown the drug
into the wine and
seen that their cups were filled,
she turned
to the company
once more
..."

It
seems difficult
to attribute this effect
on the memory
to hashish?

But
as we
saw before in myDiary,
the intoxication produced by Indian hemp
did not suppress the memory;
however,
it does produce
a state of
'euphoria'
~~
~

IN
our opinion,
the brew in question
could have contained hemp,
but probably associated in the proper proportions
with some venomous herb of the 'solanum' family,
such as henbane, datura, or belladonna
which DO act
upon the
memory.

What
confirms us
in this opinion
that 'nepenthe'
was a complex preparation,
is that in another passage of the Odyssey
Homer substituted the term 'pharmakos'
[drug] for the term
'nepenthe'
...

IN
any case,
the use of hashish
seems to have been widespread at the period
when the author [or the authors]
of the "Odyssey" were
writing!

~@~

THIS
may well
have been true
also of the potion
that the Old man of the Mountain
gave to his followers?
Hemp was TOO widely known in the Middle East at that time
to explain by itself the inprecedented success his mixture had,
although is was obviously
one of the important
ingredients?!

~@~

THE
effect of
datura on hashish
has been known for
many years in India,
and it is said to have been used
by professional robbers in that country
to produce temporary
madness in
their
victims!

~@~