Page:Homer. The Odyssey (IA homerodyssey00collrich).pdf/48

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The "Nepenthes" of Helen has obtained a wide poetical celebrity. Some allegorical interpreters of the poem would have us understand that it is the charms of conversation which have this miraculous power to make men forget their grief. Without at all questioning their efficacy, it may be safely assumed that the poet had in his mind something more material. The drug has been supposed to be opium; but the effects ascribed to the Arabian "haschich"—a preparation of hemp—correspond very closely with those said to be produced by Helen's potion. Sir Henry Halford thought it might more probably be the "hyoscyamus," which he says is still used at Constantinople and in the Morea under the name of "Nebensch."

Not till the next morning does Telemachus discuss with Menelaus the object of his journey. What little the Spartan king can tell him of the fate of his father is so far reassuring, that there is good hope he is yet alive. But he is—or was—detained in an enchanted island. There the goddess Calypso holds him an unwilling captive, and forces her love upon him. He longs sore for his home in Ithaca; but the spells of the enchantress are too strong. So much has Menelaus learnt, during his own wanderings, while wind-bound