Note 675 — INDEX TO THE NOTES.

that Nepenthes, etc. The allusion is explained by the following lines of the Odyssey: “Then Helen, daughter of Zeus, turned to new thoughts. Presently she cast a drug into the wine whereof they drank, a drug to lull all pain and anger, and bring forgetfulness of every sorrow. Whoso should drink a draught thereof, when it is mingled in the bowl, on that day he would let no tear fall down his cheeks, not though his father and his mother died ... Medicines of such virtue and so helpful had the daughter of Zeus, which Polydamna, the wife of Thon, had given her, a woman of Egypt, where earth the grain-giver yields herbs in greatest plenty, many that are healing in the cup, and many baneful” (Butcher and Lang’s translation, iv. 219-230). ‘Nepenthes,’ a Greek adj. = sorrow-dispelling (νη, privative; πένθος, grief). It is here used by Milton as the name of an opiate and it is now occasionally used as a general name for drugs that relieve pain.