![]() In the Odyssey, Calypso is described as having "spread a table with ambrosia and set it by Hermes, and mixed the rosy-red nectar." It is ambiguous whether he means the ambrosia itself is rosy-red, or if he is describing a rosy-red nectar Hermes drinks along with the ambrosia.Ambrosia and nectar are depicted as unguents (xiv. Similarly, Thetis anoints the corpse of Patroclus in order to preserve it. In the Iliad xvi, Apollo washes the black blood from the corpse of Sarpedon and anoints it with ambrosia, readying it for its dreamlike return to Sarpedon's native Lycia.In one version of the story of the birth of Achilles, Thetis anoints the infant with ambrosia and passes the child through the fire to make him immortal but Peleus, appalled, stops her, leaving only his heel unimmortalised ( Argonautica 4.869–879).Other examples in mythology Thetis anoints Achilles with ambrosia, by Johann Balthasar Probst (1673–1748) A semantically similar etymology exists for nectar, the beverage of the gods (Greek: νέκταρ néktar) presumed to be a compound of the PIE roots *nek-, "death", and -*tar, "overcoming". ![]() The two words appear to be derived from the same Indo-European form * ṇ-mṛ-tós, "un-dying" ( n-: negative prefix from which the prefix a- in both Greek and Sanskrit are derived mṛ: zero grade of * mer-, "to die" and -to-: adjectival suffix). The Greek ἀμβροσία ( ambrosia) is semantically linked to the Sanskrit अमृत ( amṛta) as both words denote a drink or food that gods use to achieve immortality. The concept of an immortality drink is attested in at least two ancient Indo-European languages: Greek and Sanskrit. Roscher thinks that both nectar and ambrosia were kinds of honey, in which case their power of conferring immortality would be due to the supposed healing and cleansing powers of honey, and because fermented honey ( mead) preceded wine as an entheogen in the Aegean world on some Minoan seals, goddesses were represented with bee faces (compare Merope and Melissa). Īdditionally, some modern ethnomycologists, such as Danny Staples, identify ambrosia with the hallucinogenic mushroom Amanita muscaria: "it was the food of the gods, their ambrosia, and nectar was the pressed sap of its juices", Staples asserts. Pliny used the term in connection with different plants, as did early herbalists. īoth nectar and ambrosia are fragrant, and may be used as perfume: in the Odyssey Menelaus and his men are disguised as seals in untanned seal skins, "and the deadly smell of the seal skins vexed us sore but the goddess saved us she brought ambrosia and put it under our nostrils." Homer speaks of ambrosial raiment, ambrosial locks of hair, even the gods' ambrosial sandals.Īmong later writers, ambrosia has been so often used with generic meanings of "delightful liquid" that such late writers as Athenaeus, Paulus and Dioscurides employ it as a technical term in contexts of cookery, medicine, and botany. Those who consume ambrosia typically have ichor, not blood, in their veins. In one version of the myth of Tantalus, part of Tantalus' crime is that after tasting ambrosia himself, he attempts to steal some to give to other mortals. Upon his assumption into immortality on Olympus, Heracles is given ambrosia by Athena, while the hero Tydeus is denied the same thing when the goddess discovers him eating human brains. The consumption of ambrosia was typically reserved for divine beings. A character in Aristophanes' Knights says, "I dreamed the goddess poured ambrosia over your head-out of a ladle." Both descriptions could be correct, as ambrosia could be a liquid considered a food (such as honey). On the other hand, in Alcman, nectar is the food, and in Sappho and Anaxandrides, ambrosia is the drink. The two terms may not have originally been distinguished though in Homer's poems nectar is usually the drink and ambrosia the food of the gods it was with ambrosia that Hera "cleansed all defilement from her lovely flesh", and with ambrosia Athena prepared Penelope in her sleep, so that when she appeared for the final time before her suitors, the effects of years had been stripped away, and they were inflamed with passion at the sight of her. Ambrosia is very closely related to the gods' other form of sustenance, nectar.
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