Magic plants / edited by Edmund Goldsmid.

  • Johann Heinrich von Heucher
Date:
1886
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Magic plants / edited by Edmund Goldsmid. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of Lucan, the fatal herbs of Claudian, the flourish- ing plants of Maro, and lastly those venomous plants, of which abundance was to be found in Colchis and Thessally? Who is ignorant of the Nepenthe of Homer, the Polion of Hesiod, the plant of the Ethiopians drying up waters, the Asphodel, sweet food of the Manes, the plant of Juba and Bela arousing the dead, the soothsaying Thelangis, the Juniper and Hypericum putting the demons to flight, the Alyssus, Baccharis, Adianthus, Satyrion and the Amulets of the Syderii charms against witch- craft? Nevertheless it has not yet appeared necessary to any one to explain these mysteries so that the observant reader might rest satisfied with regard to them. Which fact therefore the more impels me to embrace the opportunity. 6. I confess that, at first, I was filled with no inconsiderable joy when I read the list of the authors who have spoken of magic, not without praise—Hermes, Orpheus, Musseus, Pythagoras, Democritus, Empedocles, Kiranus, and others, all of whom are said to have praised magical plants ; from this I promised myself a great solace to my labour. But, indeed, all hope immediately came to naught when I found that most of these authors had been destroyed by the injury of time, or if any fragments of their writings survive they are of uncertain and slight reliance, as there is still
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