# Nepenthe

*Greek *nēpenthes*, “no-sorrow”*

**Known today as.** Unidentified; opium is the favorite guess.

Kind: Compound  
Poisoning: Opioid poisoning (https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/poisons/opioid)

## What does modern science say?

Candidates proposed include opium, the Egyptian kyphi, and cannabis; none can be proved.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **morphine**: if the drug was opium, as most commentators since the eighteenth century have thought
- **cannabis**: if it was the drug the Scythians knew, another candidate that cannot be proved

**Mechanism.** Helen’s drug in the *Odyssey* lulls pain and anger and brings forgetfulness of every sorrow; most commentators since the eighteenth century have taken it for opium, which Greek and Roman medicine used as a soporific and analgesic, but it cannot be identified with any known substance for certain.

**Standing.** A literary drug.

## What lore surrounds it?

The drug of forgetting; Homer’s other magic plant, moly, black-rooted and milk-white in flower, is the herb Mercury gives Ulysses against Circe, who drugged his men “to make them forget their homes.”

## What did the older authorities say?

**Homer.** In the fourth book of the *Odyssey*, Helen drugs the wine with an herb given her by Polydamna, wife of Thon, a woman of Egypt, which banishes all care and sorrow, so that none who drank it could shed a tear that day, though his father and mother dropped down dead, or he saw a brother or a son hewn in pieces before his eyes.

## Sources

- Homer, *Odyssey* IV.
- Crocq, M.-A. (2007). Historical and cultural aspects of man’s relationship with addictive drugs. *Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience* 9: 355–361.
- Hajar, R. (2016). Intoxicants in society. *Heart Views* 17: 42–48.
- Kakridis, F. I. (2011). [Nepenthe.] *Psychiatriki* 22: 17–23.
- Homer, *Odyssey* IV.219–232.
- Scarborough, J. (1995). “The opium poppy in Hellenistic and Roman medicine,” in *Drugs and Narcotics in History*. Cambridge University Press.

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*Nepenthe.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-03. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/nepenthe

Historical description, not medical advice.