Nepenthe

Nepenthe /nɪˈpɛnθiː/ (Ancient Greek: νηπενθές, nēpenthés) is a fictional medicine for sorrow – a "drug of forgetfulness" mentioned in ancient Greek literature and Greek mythology, depicted as originating in Egypt.[1]

For other uses, see Nepenthe (disambiguation).

The carnivorous plant genus Nepenthes is named after the drug nepenthe.

In the Odyssey

The word nepenthe first appears in the fourth book of Homer's Odyssey:

ἔνθ᾽ αὖτ᾽ ἄλλ᾽ ἐνόησ᾽ Ἑλένη Διὸς ἐκγεγαυῖα:
αὐτίκ᾽ ἄρ᾽ εἰς οἶνον βάλε φάρμακον, ἔνθεν ἔπινον,
νηπενθές τ᾽ ἄχολόν τε, κακῶν ἐπίληθον ἁπάντων.

Then Helen, daughter of Zeus, took other counsel.
Straightway she cast into the wine of which they were drinking a drug
to quiet all pain and strife, and bring forgetfulness of every ill.

—Odyssey, Book 4, v. 219–221[2]

Analysis

Figuratively, nepenthe means "that which chases away sorrow". Literally it means 'not-sorrow' or 'anti-sorrow': νη-, ne-, i.e. "not" (privative prefix),[3] and πενθές, from πένθος, penthos, i.e. "grief, sorrow, or mourning".[4] In the Odyssey, nepenthes pharmakon (i.e. an anti-sorrow drug) is a magical potion given to Helen by Polydamna the wife of the noble Egyptian Thon; it quells all sorrows with forgetfulness. Quoting this passage in his 2015 novel Boussole (Compass), French writer Mathias Énard identifies nepenthe with opium.[5] Likewise, in Forbidden Drugs, Philip Robson, Senior Research Fellow and Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist at Oxford University Department of Psychiatry, writes: "What else could Helen of Troy’s nepenthe have been but opium?"[6] Pliny the Elder and Dioscorides believed nepenthe to be the medicinal herb Borage.

References
  1. νηπενθές. Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; A Greek–English Lexicon at the Perseus Project.
  2. Homer; Murray, A.T. (translator) (1919). "4.219-221". Odyssey. "4.219-221". Homer, Odyssey (in Greek). At the Perseus Project.
  3. νη-. Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; A Greek–English Lexicon at the Perseus Project
  4. πένθος. Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; A Greek–English Lexicon at the Perseus Project.
  5. Compass, trans. Charlotte Mandell (NY: New Directions, 2017), pp. 73–74.
  6. Philip Robson (1999). Forbidden Drugs. Oxford University Press. p. 161. ISBN 978-0-19-262955-5.
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