Moly

When Odysseus is on his way to rescue his men from Circe, Hermes meets him in the form of a young man and gives him the herb moly. He describes it as having a black root and a white flower, and says that the gods call it moly; mortals find it hard to dig up.

Odysseus eats it, and when Circe strikes him with her wand, her drug has no effect. The herb is the counter-magic that makes his resistance possible. It is a rare example of a plant with explicit supernatural power in Homer.

The name moly is obscure, and ancient and modern scholars have proposed many identifications, from a real plant to a purely mythical herb. The poem does not explain its origin beyond Hermes’s gift, and its black-and-white appearance has been read as a symbol of life and death or of the boundary between worlds.

In the Odyssey, moly is above all a sign that Odysseus is not alone. Hermes’s help is practical and specific, and the herb turns a scene of enchantment into a contest that the hero can win.