CHAP. 8. (4.)—MOLY: THREE REMEDIES.
According to Homer,549 the most celebrated of all plants is that, which, according to him, is known as moly550 among the gods. The discovery of it he attributes to Mercury, who was also the first to point out its uses as neutralizing the most potent spells of sorcery. At the present day, it is said, it grows in the vicinity of Lake Pheneus, and in Cyllene; a district of Arcadia. It answers the description given of it by Homer, having a round black root, about as large as an onion, and a leaf like that of the squill: there is no551 difficulty experienced in taking it up. The Greek writers have delineated552 it as having a yellow flower, while Homer,553 on the other hand, has spoken of it as white. I once met with a physician, a person extremely well acquainted with plants, who assured me that it is found growing in Italy as well, and that he would send me in a few days a specimen which had been dug up in Campania, with the greatest difficulty, from a rocky soil. The root of it was thirty554 feet in length, and even then it was not entire, having been broken in the getting up.