A92.Inglish BCEnc. Blauwe Kaas Encyclopedie, Duaal Hermeneuties Kollegium.
Inglish Site.92.
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TO THE THRISE HO-
NOVRABLE AND EVER LY-
VING VERTVES OF SYR PHILLIP
SYDNEY KNIGHT, SYR JAMES JESUS SINGLETON, SYR CANARIS, SYR LAVRENTI BERIA ; AND TO THE
RIGHT HONORABLE AND OTHERS WHAT-
SOEVER, WHO LIVING LOVED THEM,
AND BEING DEAD GIVE THEM
THEIRE DVE.
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In the beginning there is darkness. The screen erupts in blue, then a cascade of thick, white hexadecimal numbers and cracked language, ?UnusedStk? and ?AllocMem.? Black screen cedes to blue to white and a pair of scales appear, crossed by a sword, both images drawn in the jagged, bitmapped graphics of Windows 1.0-era clip-art?light grey and yellow on a background of light cyan. Blue text proclaims, ?God on tap!?
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Introduction.
Yes i am getting a little Mobi-Literate(ML) by experimenting literary on my Mobile Phone. Peoplecall it Typographical Laziness(TL).
The first accidental entries for the this part of this encyclopedia.
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This is TempleOS V2.17, the welcome screen explains, a ?Public Domain Operating System? produced by Trivial Solutions of Las Vegas, Nevada. It greets the user with a riot of 16-color, scrolling, blinking text; depending on your frame of reference, it might recall ?DESQview, the ?Commodore 64, or a host of early DOS-based graphical user interfaces. In style if not in specifics, it evokes a particular era, a time when the then-new concept of ?personal computing? necessarily meant programming and tinkering and breaking things.
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Index.
236.ANUBIS etymology.
237.Mandragora Officinarum/Mandrake.
238.Lords of the Night.
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236.ANUBIS etymology.
GENDER: Masculine
USAGE: Egyptian Mythology (Latinized)
PRONOUNCED: ?-NOO-bis (English) [key]
Meaning & History.
Anubis.
Anubis (/??nu?b?s/ or /??nju?b?s/; Ancient Greek: ???????) is the Greek name of a jackal-headed god associated with mummification and the afterlife in ancient Egyptian religion. Anubis is associated with Wepwawet (also called Upuaut), another Egyptian god portrayed with a dog's head or in canine form, but with grey or white fur. Historians assume that the two figures were eventually combined. Anubis' female counterpart is Anput. His daughter is the serpent goddess Kebechet. Jackal-headed god of Egyptian religion, from Greek Anoubis, from Egyptian Anpu. Latinized form of ??????? (Anoubis), the Greek form of Egyptian Inpw (reconstructed as Anapa) which possibly meant "royal child". "Anubis" is a Greek rendering of this god's Egyptian name. In the Old Kingdom (c. 2686 BC ? c. 2181 BC), the standard way of writing his name in hieroglyphs was composed of the sound inpw followed by a jackal over a ?tp sign. A new form with the jackal on a tall stand appeared in the late Old Kingdom and became common thereafter. According to the Akkadian transcription in the Amarna letters, Anubis' name (inpw) was vocalized in Egyptian as Anapa.
(Egyptian mythology)Anubis, also called Anpu, ancient Egyptian god of the dead, represented by a jackal or the figure of a man with the head of a jackal. In Egypt's Early Dynastic period (c. 3100 ? c. 2686 BC), Anubis was portrayed in full animal form, with a jackal head and body. A jackal god, probably Anubis, is depicted in stone inscriptions from the reigns of Hor-Aha, Djer, and other pharaohs of the First Dynasty. Since Predynastic Egypt, when the dead were buried in shallow graves, jackals had been strongly associated with cemeteries because they were scavengers which uncovered human bodies and ate their flesh. In the spirit of "fighting like with like," a jackal was chosen to protect the dead. A deity, a son of Osiris, who conducted the dead to judgment. The parentage of Anubis varied between myths, times and sources. In early mythology, he was portrayed as a son of Ra. In the Coffin Texts, which were written in the First Intermediate Period (c. 2181?2055 BC), Anubis is the son of either the cow goddess Hesat or the cat-headed Bastet. Another tradition depicted him as the son of his father Ra and mother Nephthys. The Greek Plutarch (c. 40?120 AD) stated that Anubis was the illegitimate son of Nephthys and Osiris, but that he was adopted by Osiris's wife Isis. For when Isis found out that Osiris loved her sister and had sexual relations with her in mistaking her sister for herself, and when she saw a proof of it in the form of a garland of clover that he had left to Nephthys - she was looking for a baby, because Nephthys abandoned it at once after it had been born for fear of Seth; and when Isis found the baby helped by the dogs which with great difficulties lead her there, she raised him and he became her guard and ally by the name of Anubis. George Hart sees this story as an "attempt to incorporate the independent deity Anubis into the Osirian pantheon." An Egyptian papyrus from the Roman period (30?380 AD) simply called Anubis the "son of Isis." He is represented as having a jackal's head and was identified by the Greeks with Hermes. Anubis was depicted in black, a color that symbolized both rebirth and the discoloration of the corpse after embalming. Anubis was the Egyptian god who led the dead to the underworld. He was often depicted as a man with the head of a jackal.
In the Early Dynastic period and the Old Kingdom, he enjoyed a preeminent (though not exclusive) position as lord of the dead, but he was later overshadowed by Osiris.
His role is reflected in such epithets as ?He Who Is upon His Mountain? (i.e., the necropolis), ?Lord of the Sacred Land,? ?Foremost of the Westerners,? and ?He Who Is in the Place of Embalming.?
Anubis was one of the most important funerary deities of Ancient Egypt. The importance of the Cynocephalus (in ancient greek language, god resided in the power to facilitate the funeral and the transition to the afterlife, at first for royalty, and later for all people and his worship lasted throughout the entire history and culture of Ancient Egypt.
Like many ancient Egyptian deities, Anubis assumed different roles in various contexts. The oldest known textual mention of Anubis is in the Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom (c. 2686 ? c. 2181 BC), where he is associated with the burial of the pharaoh. In the Old Kingdom, Anubis was the most important god of the dead. He was replaced in that role by Osiris during the Middle Kingdom (2000?1700 BC). In the Roman era, which started in 30 BC, tomb paintings depict him holding the hand of deceased persons to guide them to Osiris. Depicted as a protector of graves as early as the First Dynasty (c. 3100 ? c. 2890 BC), Anubis was also an embalmer. By the Middle Kingdom (c. 2055 ? 1650 BC), Anubis was replaced by Osiris in his role as Lord of the underworld. One of his prominent roles was as a god who ushered souls into the afterlife. He attended the weighing scale during the "Weighing of the Heart," in which it was determined whether a soul would be allowed to enter the realm of the dead.
His particular concern was with the funerary cult and the care of the dead; hence, he was reputed to be the inventor of embalming, an art he first employed on the corpse of Osiris. In his later role as the ?conductor of souls,? he was sometimes identified by the Greco-Roman world with the Greek Hermes in the composite deity Hermanubis. Despite being one of the most ancient and "one of the most frequently depicted and mentioned gods" in the Egyptian pantheon, however, Anubis played almost no role in Egyptian myths.
Roles;1.Protector of tombs/2.Embalmer/3.Weighing of the heart/4.Guide of souls.
1.Protector of tombs.
In contrast to real jackals, Anubis was a protector of graves and cemeteries. Several epithets attached to his name in Egyptian texts and inscriptions referred to that role. Khenty-imentiu, which means "foremost of the westerners" and later became the name of a different jackal god, alluded to his protecting function because the dead were usually buried on the west bank of the Nile. He took other names in connection with his funerary role, such as "He who is upon his mountain" (tepy-dju-ef) ? keeping guard over tombs from above ? and "Lord of the sacred land" (neb-ta-djeser), which designates him as a god of the desert necropolis.
2.Embalmer.
As "He who is in the place of embalming" (imy-ut), Anubis was associated with mummification. He was also called "He who presides over the god's pavilion" (khanty-she-netjer), in which "pavilion" could be refer either to the place where embalming was carried out, or the pharaoh's burial chamber.
In the Osiris myth, Anubis helped Isis to embalm Osiris. Indeed, when the Osiris myth emerged, it was said that after Osiris had been killed by Set, Osiris's organs were given to Anubis as a gift. With this connection, Anubis became the patron god of embalmers; during the rites of mummification, illustrations from the Book of the Dead often show a jackal-mask-wearing priest supporting the upright mummy.
3.Weighing of the heart.
The "weighing of the heart," from the book of the dead of Hunefer. Anubis is portrayed as both guiding the deceased forward and manipulating the scales, under the scrutiny of the ibis-headed Thoth.
One of the roles of Anubis was as the "Guardian of the Scales." The critical scene depicting the weighing of the heart, in the Book of the Dead, shows Anubis performing a measurement that determined whether the person was worthy of entering the realm of the dead (the underworld, known as Duat). By weighing the heart of a deceased person against Ma'at (or "truth"), who was often represented as an ostrich feather, Anubis dictated the fate of souls. Souls heavier than a feather would be devoured by Ammit, and souls lighter than a feather would ascend to a heavenly existence.
4.Guide of souls.
By the late pharaonic era (664?332 BC), Anubis was often depicted as guiding individuals across the threshold from the world of the living to the afterlife. Though a similar role was sometimes performed by the cow-headed Hathor, Anubis was more commonly chosen to fulfill that function. Greek writers from the Roman period of Egyptian history designated that role as that of "psychopomp", a Greek term meaning "guide of souls" that they used to refer to their own god Hermes, who also played that role in Greek religion. Funerary art from that period represents Anubis guiding either men or women dressed in Greek clothes into the presence of Osiris, who by then had long replaced Anubis as ruler of the underworld.
In the Ptolemaic period (350?30 BC), when Egypt became a Hellenistic kingdom ruled by Greek pharaohs, Anubis was merged with the Greek god Hermes, becoming Hermanubis. The two gods were considered similar because they both guided souls to the afterlife. The center of this cult was in uten-ha/Sa-ka/ Cynopolis, a place whose Greek name means "city of dogs." Although the Greeks and Romans typically scorned Egypt's animal-headed gods as bizarre and primitive (Anubis was mockingly called "Barker" by the Greeks), Anubis was sometimes associated with Sirius in the heavens and Cerberus and Hades in the underworld. In his dialogues, Plato often has Socrates utter oaths "by the dog" (kai me ton kuna), "by the dog of Egypt", and "by the dog, the god of the Egyptians", both for emphasis and to appeal to Anubis as an arbiter of truth in the underworld.
In Book XI of The Golden Ass by Apuleius, there is evidence that the worship of this god was continued in Rome through at least the 2nd century. Indeed, Hermanubis also appears in the alchemical and hermetical literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Although the Greeks and Romans usually despised the animal origin gods of Egypt as bizarre and primitive (Anubis was derogatory referred "The Barker"), and also rejected by the early Christians, however, to the same Greek and Latin authors, Anubis was sometimes associated with Sirius in the heavens, and Cerberus in pandemonium. This incorporation is attested in the XIth Book of "The Golden Donkey" or Methamorphoses by Appuleius, where we find evidence that the worship of this god being maintained in Rome, at least until the second century. Moreover, Hermanubis also appears constantly in alchemical and hermetical literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
VARIANTS: Anapa, Anoubis
Anubis.
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237.Mandragora Officinarum/Mandrake.
Mandragora officinarum or mandrake is the type species of the plant genus Mandragora. As of 2015, sources differ significantly in the species they use for Mandragora plants native to the Mediterranean region. In the narrowest circumscription, M. officinarum is limited to small areas of northern Italy and the coast of former Yugoslavia, and the main species found around the Mediterranean is called Mandragora autumnalis, the autumn mandrake. In a broader circumscription, all the plants native to the countries around the Mediterranean sea are placed in M. officinarum, which thus includes M. autumnalis. The names autumn mandrake and Mediterranean mandrake are then used. Whatever the circumscription, Mandragora officinarum is a perennial herbaceous plant with ovate leaves arranged in a rosette, a thick upright root, often branched, and bell-shaped flowers followed by yellow or orange berries.
Because mandrakes contain deliriant hallucinogenic tropane alkaloids and shape of their roots often resemble human figures, they have been associated with a variety of superstitious practices throughout the history. They have long been used in magic rituals, today also in contemporary pagan traditions such as Wicca and Odinism. However, the so-called "mandrakes" used in this way are not always species of Mandragora let alone Mandragora officinarum; for example, Bryonia alba, the English mandrake, is explicitly mentioned in some sources.
Description.
Mandragora plant from Israel that some sources would place in Mandragora autumnalis rather than Mandragora officinarum
As of 2015, Mandragora officinarum has three or four different circumscriptions (see Taxonomy below). The description below applies to a broad circumscription, used in a 1998 revision of the genus, in which the name is used for all the plants native to Mediterranean region. Thus defined, Mandragora officinarum is a very variable perennial herbaceous plant with a long thick root, often branched. It has almost no stem, the leaves being borne in a basal rosette. The leaves are very variable in size and shape, with a maximum length of 45 cm (18 in). They are usually either elliptical in shape or wider towards the end (obovate), with varying degrees of hairiness.
The flowers appear from autumn to spring (September to April). They are borne in the axils of the leaves. The flower stalks (pedicels) are also very variable in length, up to 45 cm (18 in) long. The five sepals are 6?28 mm (0.2?1.1 in) long, fused together at the base and then forming free lobes to about a half to two-thirds of their total length. The five petals are greenish white to pale blue or violet in colour, 12?65 mm (0.5?2.6 in) long, and, like the sepals, joined together at the base with free lobes at the end. The lobes are between half as long as the petals to almost as long. The five stamens are joined to the bases of the petals and vary in length from 7 to 15 mm (0.3 to 0.6 in). The anthers of the stamens are usually yellow or brown, but are sometimes pale blue.
The fruit which forms in late autumn to early summer (November to June) is a berry, shaped like a globe or an ellipsoid (i.e. longer than wide), with a very variable diameter of 5?40 mm (0.2?1.6 in). When ripe, the fruit is glossy, and yellow to orange ? somewhat resembling a small tomato. It contains yellow to light brown seeds, 2.5?6 mm (0.10?0.24 in) long.
Earlier, a different circumscription was used, in which Mandragora officinarum referred only to plants found in northern Italy and part of the coast of former Yugoslavia, most Mediterranean mandrakes being placed in Mandragora autumnalis. The description above would then apply to both species combined, with M. officinarum having greenish-white rather than violet petals, up to 25 mm (1 in) long rather than usually 30?40 mm (1.2?1.6 in) or longer, and a berry that is globose rather than ellipsoid. More recently, plants native to the Levant have been separated out as Mandragora autumnalis, leaving those found in the rest of the Mediterranean area as M. officinarum. One difference then is that the size of the seeds of M. officinarum is less than half the size of those of M. autumnalis.
Taxonomy.
Mandragora officinarum was first described in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus in the first edition of Species Plantarum. It is the type species of the genus Mandragora. (Linnaeus later changed his mind and in 1759 placed M. officinarum in the genus Atropa as A. mandragora.) Linnaeus regarded M. officinarum as the sole species in the genus, at that time only known from the Mediterranean region. Jackson and Berry (1979) and Ungricht et al. (1998) have documented some of the subsequent confusion over the number of Mediterranean species of Mandragora and their scientific names. Ungricht et al. describe the confusion as "incredible" and a "morass".
The first confusion relates to the name "Mandragora officinalis Mill.", dated to 1768 in the eighth edition of Philip Miller's The gardener's dictionary. However, this work uses the epithet officinarum, not "officinalis". There is a reference to "Mandragora officinalis" as a synonym in the 9th edition of The gardener's dictionary of 1807. However, there was no such earlier use of the name, and Ungricht et al. say that "officinalis" is an orthographic error for the correct epithet officinarum, so that the name "Mandragora officinalis Mill." (and any subsequent uses of this epithet) have "no real nomenclatural standing".
The second confusion relates to the number of Mediterranean species of Mandragora (a confusion which continues). At different times, between one to five taxa have been recognized. Dioscorides was among those who distinguished between "male" and "female" mandrakes, a distinction used in 1764 when Garsault published the names Mandragora mas and Mandragora foemina. Flowering time was also used to distinguish species; thus in the 1820s, Antonio Bertoloni named two species as Mandragora vernalis, the spring-flowering mandrake, and Mandragora autumnalis, the autumn-flowering mandrake. Since the late 1990s, three main circumscriptions of Mandragora officinarum have been used and all three will be found in current sources.
Identifying the spring-flowering mandrake as Linnaeus's M. officinarum, works such as Flora Europaea list two Mediterranean species of Mandragora: M. officinarum and M. autumnalis. On this view, the main Mediterranean species is M. autumnalis rather than M. officinarum, which is a rare species, confined to northern Italy and a small region of the coast of former Yugoslavia.
Using statistical analysis of morphological characters, Ungricht et al. in 1998 found no distinct clusters among the specimens they examined and concluded that Linnaeus's M. officinarum is a single, variable species. They thus include M. autumnalis in M. officinarum, which on this view is the only Mediterranean mandrake.
M. autumnalis was again separated from M. officinarum by Tu et al. in 2010 in a molecular phylogenetic study. They regard M. officinarum as the main species in the Mediterranean, but separate out plants native to the Levant as M. autumnalis, which was then shown to be more closely related to Mandragora turcomanica than to their circumscription of M. officinarum.
Distribution and habitat.
In the circumscription in which Mandragora officinarum is the only Mediterranean species, it is native to southern Portugal and countries around the Mediterranean sea: Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco in north Africa; southern Spain, Italy, former Yugoslavia, Greece and Cyprus in southern Europe; southern Turkey; Syria, Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan in the Levant. It is usually found in open habitats, such as light woodland and disturbed sites, including olive groves, fallow land, waysides, railway embankments and ruins, from sea level to 1,200 m (3,900 ft).
When Mandragora autumnalis is regarded as the main Mediterranean species, M. officinarum is native only to north Italy and part of the coast of former Yugoslavia. Alternatively, M. officinarum is absent from the Levant, where it is replaced by M. autumnalis.
Toxicity.
All species of Mandragora contain highly biologically active alkaloids, tropane alkaloids in particular. Hanu? et al. reviewed the phytochemistry of Mandragora species. More than 80 substances have been identified; their paper gives the detailed chemical structure of 37 of them. Jackson and Berry were unable to find any differences in alkaloid composition between Mandragora officinarum (using the narrowest circumscription of this species) and Mandragora autumnalis (viewed as the main Mediterranean species). Alkaloids present in the fresh plant or the dried root included atropine, hyoscyamine, scopolamine (hyoscine), scopine, cuscohygrine, apoatropine, 3-alpha-tigloyloxytropane, 3-alpha,6-beta-ditigloyloxytropane and belladonnines. Non-alkaloid constituents included sitosterol and beta-methylesculetin (scopoletin).
The alkaloids make the plant, in particular the root and leaves, poisonous, via anticholinergic, hallucinogenic, and hypnotic effects. Anticholinergic properties can lead to asphyxiation. Ingesting mandrake root is likely to have other adverse effects such as vomiting and diarrhea. The alkaloid concentration varies between plant samples, and accidental poisoning is likely to occur. Clinical reports of the effects of consumption of Mandragora officinarum (as Mandragora autumnalis) include severe symptoms similar to those of atropine poisoning, including blurred vision, dilation of the pupils (mydriasis), dryness of the mouth, difficulty in urinating, dizziness, headache, vomiting, blushing and a rapid heart rate (tachycardia). Hyperactivity and hallucinations also occurred in the majority of patients.
Folklore.
The so-called "female" and "male" mandrakes, from a 1583 illustration
Mandrake has a long history of medicinal use, although superstition has played a large part in the uses to which it has been applied. It is rarely prescribed in modern herbalism.
The root is hallucinogenic and narcotic. In sufficient quantities, it induces a state of oblivion and was used as an anaesthetic for surgery in ancient times.[14] In the past, juice from the finely grated root was applied externally to relieve rheumatic pains. It was also used internally to treat melancholy, convulsions, and mania. When taken internally in large doses, however, it is said to excite delirium and madness.
In the past, mandrake was often made into amulets which were believed to bring good fortune, cure sterility, etc. In one superstition, people who pull up this root will be condemned to hell, and the mandrake root would scream as it was pulled from the ground, killing anyone who heard it. Therefore in the past, people have tied the roots to the bodies of animals and then used these animals to pull the roots from the soil.
In the Bible.
Two references to ?????? (dûdã'im)?literally meaning "love plant"?occur in the Jewish scriptures. The Septuagint translates ?????? (dûdã'im) as ??????????? (mandragoras), and Vulgate follows Septuagint. A number of later translations into different languages follow Septuagint (and Vulgate) and use mandrake as the plant as the proper meaning in both Genesis 30:14?16 and Song of Solomon 7:13. Others follow the example of the Luther Bible and provide a more literal translation.
In Genesis 30:14, Reuben, the eldest son of Jacob and Leah finds mandrake in a field. Rachel, Jacob's infertile second wife and Leah's sister, is desirous of the ?????? and barters with Leah for them. The trade offered by Rachel is for Leah to spend that night in Jacob's bed in exchange for Leah's ??????. Leah gives away the plant to her barren sister, but soon after this (Genesis 30:14?22), Leah, who had previously had four sons but had been infertile for a long while, became pregnant once more and in time gave birth to two more sons, Issachar and Zebulun, and a daughter, Dinah. Only years after this episode of her asking for the mandrakes did Rachel manage to become pregnant. The predominant traditional Jewish view is that ?????? were an ancient folk remedy to help barren women conceive a child.
14 And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them unto his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Give me, I pray thee, of thy son's mandrakes.
15 And she said unto her, Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my husband? and wouldest thou take away my son's mandrakes also? And Rachel said, Therefore he shall lie with thee to night for thy son's mandrakes.
16 And Jacob came out of the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and said, Thou must come in unto me; for surely I have hired thee with my son's mandrakes. And he lay with her that night.
?the Bible, King James Version, Genesis 30:14?16
A number of other plants have been suggested by biblical scholars,[citation needed] e.g., most notably, ginseng, which looks similar to the mandrake root and reputedly has fertility enhancing properties, for which it was picked by Reuben in the Bible; blackberries, Zizyphus lotus, the sidr of the Arabs, the banana, lily, citron, and fig. Sir Thomas Browne, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica, ch. VII, suggested the dudai'im of Genesis 30:14 is the opium poppy, because the word duda'im may be a reference to a woman's breasts.
The final verses of Song of Songs (Song of Songs 7:12?13), are:
?????? ??????? ?????? ?????????? ????????? ?????????????? ?????????????? ???????????? ???????? ??? ?????????? ?????????? ???????? ??????????? ???????? ????????????? ????? ??????? ??????????? ??????
12 Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give thee my loves.
13 The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.
?the Bible, King James Version, Song of Songs 7:12?13
Magic and witchcraft.
Mandragora, from Tacuinum Sanitatis (1474).
According to the legend, when the root is dug up, it screams and kills all who hear it. Literature includes complex directions for harvesting a mandrake root in relative safety. For example Josephus (circa 37?100 AD) of Jerusalem gives the following directions for pulling it up:
A furrow must be dug around the root until its lower part is exposed, then a dog is tied to it, after which the person tying the dog must get away. The dog then endeavours to follow him, and so easily pulls up the root, but dies suddenly instead of his master. After this, the root can be handled without fear.
Excerpt from Chapter XVI, "Witchcraft and Spells", of Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual by nineteenth-century occultist and ceremonial magician Eliphas Levi.
The following is taken from Paul Christian's The History and Practice of Magic:
Would you like to make a Mandragora, as powerful as the homunculus (little man in a bottle) so praised by Paracelsus? Then find a root of the plant called bryony. Take it out of the ground on a Monday (the day of the moon), a little time after the vernal equinox. Cut off the ends of the root and bury it at night in some country churchyard in a dead man's grave. For 30 days, water it with cow's milk in which three bats have been drowned. When the 31st day arrives, take out the root in the middle of the night and dry it in an oven heated with branches of verbena; then wrap it up in a piece of a dead man's winding-sheet and carry it with you everywhere.
In literature.
In its more sinister significance:
Machiavelli wrote in 1518 a play Mandragola (The Mandrake) in which the plot revolves around the use of a mandrake potion as a ploy to bed a woman.
Shakespeare refers four times to mandrake and twice under the name of mandragora.
"... Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst yesterday."
Shakespeare: Othello III.iii
"Give me to drink mandragora ...
That I might sleep out this great gap of time
My Antony is away."
Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra I.v
"Shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth."
Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet IV.iii
"Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan"
King Henry VI part II III.ii
John Donne refers to it in the second line of his song, 'Go and catch a falling star', as an example of an impossible task,
"Get with child a mandrake root"
Alraune (German for Mandrake) is a novel by German novelist Hanns Heinz Ewers published in 1911.
It is in Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot, too. "Let's hang ourselves immediately!" "It'd give us an Erection!" "An Erection!" "With all that follows?where it falls, Mandrakes grow, that's why they shriek when you pull them up. Did you not know that?"
In Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, mandrakes can be found in the Hogwarts greenhouses. When pulled out of the earth, they resemble humans, and just as in the mythology, the cry is fatal. The mandrake can also revive those who have been petrified.
In The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck, Ethan Hawley mentions both the form and legend of the mandrake root in chapter eight when describing a collection of "worthless family treasures" as follows: "We even had a mandrake root?a perfect little man, sprouted from the death-ejected sperm of a hanged man ..."
In Pan's Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro, the Fawn, Pan, explains that a mandrake root is "A plant that dreamt of being human", and it can have healing powers if instructions are followed.
In Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett, a reference to the mandrake is made, describing a plant that lets out a supersonic scream when it is uprooted.
In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventure of the Devil's Foot (contained in the Sherlock Homes collection His Last Bow) a crystalline extract of "Devil's Foot Root", also called mandrake, is at the root, so to speak, of two bizarre and related murders.
In Neil Gaiman's "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" Lettie Hempstock trades a Mandrake for a shadow-bottle to attempt to send Ursula Monkton away "Mandrakes are so loud when you pull them up, and I didn't have earplugs"
In The Republic by Plato, mandrake is used in an image whereby men use it to drug a ship captain, and take control of the ship (488 c4).
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238.Lords of the Night.
In Mesoamerican mythology the Lords of the Night are a set of nine gods who each ruled over every ninth night forming a calendrical cycle. Each lord was associated with a particular fortune, bad or good, that was an omen for the night that they ruled over.
The lords of the night are known in both the Aztec and Maya calendar, although the specific names of the Maya Night Lords are unknown.
The glyphs corresponding to the night gods are known and mayanists identify them with labels G1 to G9, the G series. Generally, these glyphs are frequently used with a fixed glyph coined F. The only Mayan light lord that has been identified is the God G9,Pauahtun the Aged Quadripartite God.
The existence of a 9 nights cycle in Mesoamerican calendrics was first discovered in 1904 by Eduard Seler. The Aztec names of the Deities are known because their names are glossed in the Codex Telleriano-Remensis and Codex Tudela. Seler argued that the 9 lords each corresponded to one of the nine levels of the under world and ruled the corresponding hour of the night time, this argument has not generally been accepted, since the evidence suggests that the lord of a given night ruled over that entire night. Zelia Nuttall argued that the Nine Lords of the Night represented the nine moons of the Lunar year. The cycle of the Nine Lords of the Night held special relation to the Mesoamerican ritual calendar of 260-days and nights or -night which includes exactly 29 groups of 9 nights each, and also, approximately, 9 vague lunations of 29 days each.
The Nine Lords of the Night in Aztec mythology are:
1.Xiuhtecuhtli ("Turqoise/Year/Fire Lord")
2.Itztli/Tecpatl ("Obsidian"/"Flint")
3.Piltzintecuhtli ("Prince Lord")
4.Centeotl ("Maize God")
5.Mictlantecuhtli ("Underworld Lord")
6.Chalchiuhtlicue ("Jade Is Her Skirt")
7.Tlazolteotl ("Filth God[dess]")
8.Tepeyollotl ("Mountain Heart")
9.Tlaloc (Rain God)
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Inglish Site.92.
*
TO THE THRISE HO-
NOVRABLE AND EVER LY-
VING VERTVES OF SYR PHILLIP
SYDNEY KNIGHT, SYR JAMES JESUS SINGLETON, SYR CANARIS, SYR LAVRENTI BERIA ; AND TO THE
RIGHT HONORABLE AND OTHERS WHAT-
SOEVER, WHO LIVING LOVED THEM,
AND BEING DEAD GIVE THEM
THEIRE DVE.
***
In the beginning there is darkness. The screen erupts in blue, then a cascade of thick, white hexadecimal numbers and cracked language, ?UnusedStk? and ?AllocMem.? Black screen cedes to blue to white and a pair of scales appear, crossed by a sword, both images drawn in the jagged, bitmapped graphics of Windows 1.0-era clip-art?light grey and yellow on a background of light cyan. Blue text proclaims, ?God on tap!?
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Introduction.
Yes i am getting a little Mobi-Literate(ML) by experimenting literary on my Mobile Phone. Peoplecall it Typographical Laziness(TL).
The first accidental entries for the this part of this encyclopedia.
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This is TempleOS V2.17, the welcome screen explains, a ?Public Domain Operating System? produced by Trivial Solutions of Las Vegas, Nevada. It greets the user with a riot of 16-color, scrolling, blinking text; depending on your frame of reference, it might recall ?DESQview, the ?Commodore 64, or a host of early DOS-based graphical user interfaces. In style if not in specifics, it evokes a particular era, a time when the then-new concept of ?personal computing? necessarily meant programming and tinkering and breaking things.
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Index.
236.ANUBIS etymology.
237.Mandragora Officinarum/Mandrake.
238.Lords of the Night.
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236.ANUBIS etymology.
GENDER: Masculine
USAGE: Egyptian Mythology (Latinized)
PRONOUNCED: ?-NOO-bis (English) [key]
Meaning & History.
Anubis.
Anubis (/??nu?b?s/ or /??nju?b?s/; Ancient Greek: ???????) is the Greek name of a jackal-headed god associated with mummification and the afterlife in ancient Egyptian religion. Anubis is associated with Wepwawet (also called Upuaut), another Egyptian god portrayed with a dog's head or in canine form, but with grey or white fur. Historians assume that the two figures were eventually combined. Anubis' female counterpart is Anput. His daughter is the serpent goddess Kebechet. Jackal-headed god of Egyptian religion, from Greek Anoubis, from Egyptian Anpu. Latinized form of ??????? (Anoubis), the Greek form of Egyptian Inpw (reconstructed as Anapa) which possibly meant "royal child". "Anubis" is a Greek rendering of this god's Egyptian name. In the Old Kingdom (c. 2686 BC ? c. 2181 BC), the standard way of writing his name in hieroglyphs was composed of the sound inpw followed by a jackal over a ?tp sign. A new form with the jackal on a tall stand appeared in the late Old Kingdom and became common thereafter. According to the Akkadian transcription in the Amarna letters, Anubis' name (inpw) was vocalized in Egyptian as Anapa.
(Egyptian mythology)Anubis, also called Anpu, ancient Egyptian god of the dead, represented by a jackal or the figure of a man with the head of a jackal. In Egypt's Early Dynastic period (c. 3100 ? c. 2686 BC), Anubis was portrayed in full animal form, with a jackal head and body. A jackal god, probably Anubis, is depicted in stone inscriptions from the reigns of Hor-Aha, Djer, and other pharaohs of the First Dynasty. Since Predynastic Egypt, when the dead were buried in shallow graves, jackals had been strongly associated with cemeteries because they were scavengers which uncovered human bodies and ate their flesh. In the spirit of "fighting like with like," a jackal was chosen to protect the dead. A deity, a son of Osiris, who conducted the dead to judgment. The parentage of Anubis varied between myths, times and sources. In early mythology, he was portrayed as a son of Ra. In the Coffin Texts, which were written in the First Intermediate Period (c. 2181?2055 BC), Anubis is the son of either the cow goddess Hesat or the cat-headed Bastet. Another tradition depicted him as the son of his father Ra and mother Nephthys. The Greek Plutarch (c. 40?120 AD) stated that Anubis was the illegitimate son of Nephthys and Osiris, but that he was adopted by Osiris's wife Isis. For when Isis found out that Osiris loved her sister and had sexual relations with her in mistaking her sister for herself, and when she saw a proof of it in the form of a garland of clover that he had left to Nephthys - she was looking for a baby, because Nephthys abandoned it at once after it had been born for fear of Seth; and when Isis found the baby helped by the dogs which with great difficulties lead her there, she raised him and he became her guard and ally by the name of Anubis. George Hart sees this story as an "attempt to incorporate the independent deity Anubis into the Osirian pantheon." An Egyptian papyrus from the Roman period (30?380 AD) simply called Anubis the "son of Isis." He is represented as having a jackal's head and was identified by the Greeks with Hermes. Anubis was depicted in black, a color that symbolized both rebirth and the discoloration of the corpse after embalming. Anubis was the Egyptian god who led the dead to the underworld. He was often depicted as a man with the head of a jackal.
In the Early Dynastic period and the Old Kingdom, he enjoyed a preeminent (though not exclusive) position as lord of the dead, but he was later overshadowed by Osiris.
His role is reflected in such epithets as ?He Who Is upon His Mountain? (i.e., the necropolis), ?Lord of the Sacred Land,? ?Foremost of the Westerners,? and ?He Who Is in the Place of Embalming.?
Anubis was one of the most important funerary deities of Ancient Egypt. The importance of the Cynocephalus (in ancient greek language, god resided in the power to facilitate the funeral and the transition to the afterlife, at first for royalty, and later for all people and his worship lasted throughout the entire history and culture of Ancient Egypt.
Like many ancient Egyptian deities, Anubis assumed different roles in various contexts. The oldest known textual mention of Anubis is in the Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom (c. 2686 ? c. 2181 BC), where he is associated with the burial of the pharaoh. In the Old Kingdom, Anubis was the most important god of the dead. He was replaced in that role by Osiris during the Middle Kingdom (2000?1700 BC). In the Roman era, which started in 30 BC, tomb paintings depict him holding the hand of deceased persons to guide them to Osiris. Depicted as a protector of graves as early as the First Dynasty (c. 3100 ? c. 2890 BC), Anubis was also an embalmer. By the Middle Kingdom (c. 2055 ? 1650 BC), Anubis was replaced by Osiris in his role as Lord of the underworld. One of his prominent roles was as a god who ushered souls into the afterlife. He attended the weighing scale during the "Weighing of the Heart," in which it was determined whether a soul would be allowed to enter the realm of the dead.
His particular concern was with the funerary cult and the care of the dead; hence, he was reputed to be the inventor of embalming, an art he first employed on the corpse of Osiris. In his later role as the ?conductor of souls,? he was sometimes identified by the Greco-Roman world with the Greek Hermes in the composite deity Hermanubis. Despite being one of the most ancient and "one of the most frequently depicted and mentioned gods" in the Egyptian pantheon, however, Anubis played almost no role in Egyptian myths.
Roles;1.Protector of tombs/2.Embalmer/3.Weighing of the heart/4.Guide of souls.
1.Protector of tombs.
In contrast to real jackals, Anubis was a protector of graves and cemeteries. Several epithets attached to his name in Egyptian texts and inscriptions referred to that role. Khenty-imentiu, which means "foremost of the westerners" and later became the name of a different jackal god, alluded to his protecting function because the dead were usually buried on the west bank of the Nile. He took other names in connection with his funerary role, such as "He who is upon his mountain" (tepy-dju-ef) ? keeping guard over tombs from above ? and "Lord of the sacred land" (neb-ta-djeser), which designates him as a god of the desert necropolis.
2.Embalmer.
As "He who is in the place of embalming" (imy-ut), Anubis was associated with mummification. He was also called "He who presides over the god's pavilion" (khanty-she-netjer), in which "pavilion" could be refer either to the place where embalming was carried out, or the pharaoh's burial chamber.
In the Osiris myth, Anubis helped Isis to embalm Osiris. Indeed, when the Osiris myth emerged, it was said that after Osiris had been killed by Set, Osiris's organs were given to Anubis as a gift. With this connection, Anubis became the patron god of embalmers; during the rites of mummification, illustrations from the Book of the Dead often show a jackal-mask-wearing priest supporting the upright mummy.
3.Weighing of the heart.
The "weighing of the heart," from the book of the dead of Hunefer. Anubis is portrayed as both guiding the deceased forward and manipulating the scales, under the scrutiny of the ibis-headed Thoth.
One of the roles of Anubis was as the "Guardian of the Scales." The critical scene depicting the weighing of the heart, in the Book of the Dead, shows Anubis performing a measurement that determined whether the person was worthy of entering the realm of the dead (the underworld, known as Duat). By weighing the heart of a deceased person against Ma'at (or "truth"), who was often represented as an ostrich feather, Anubis dictated the fate of souls. Souls heavier than a feather would be devoured by Ammit, and souls lighter than a feather would ascend to a heavenly existence.
4.Guide of souls.
By the late pharaonic era (664?332 BC), Anubis was often depicted as guiding individuals across the threshold from the world of the living to the afterlife. Though a similar role was sometimes performed by the cow-headed Hathor, Anubis was more commonly chosen to fulfill that function. Greek writers from the Roman period of Egyptian history designated that role as that of "psychopomp", a Greek term meaning "guide of souls" that they used to refer to their own god Hermes, who also played that role in Greek religion. Funerary art from that period represents Anubis guiding either men or women dressed in Greek clothes into the presence of Osiris, who by then had long replaced Anubis as ruler of the underworld.
In the Ptolemaic period (350?30 BC), when Egypt became a Hellenistic kingdom ruled by Greek pharaohs, Anubis was merged with the Greek god Hermes, becoming Hermanubis. The two gods were considered similar because they both guided souls to the afterlife. The center of this cult was in uten-ha/Sa-ka/ Cynopolis, a place whose Greek name means "city of dogs." Although the Greeks and Romans typically scorned Egypt's animal-headed gods as bizarre and primitive (Anubis was mockingly called "Barker" by the Greeks), Anubis was sometimes associated with Sirius in the heavens and Cerberus and Hades in the underworld. In his dialogues, Plato often has Socrates utter oaths "by the dog" (kai me ton kuna), "by the dog of Egypt", and "by the dog, the god of the Egyptians", both for emphasis and to appeal to Anubis as an arbiter of truth in the underworld.
In Book XI of The Golden Ass by Apuleius, there is evidence that the worship of this god was continued in Rome through at least the 2nd century. Indeed, Hermanubis also appears in the alchemical and hermetical literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
Although the Greeks and Romans usually despised the animal origin gods of Egypt as bizarre and primitive (Anubis was derogatory referred "The Barker"), and also rejected by the early Christians, however, to the same Greek and Latin authors, Anubis was sometimes associated with Sirius in the heavens, and Cerberus in pandemonium. This incorporation is attested in the XIth Book of "The Golden Donkey" or Methamorphoses by Appuleius, where we find evidence that the worship of this god being maintained in Rome, at least until the second century. Moreover, Hermanubis also appears constantly in alchemical and hermetical literature of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.
VARIANTS: Anapa, Anoubis
Anubis.
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237.Mandragora Officinarum/Mandrake.
Mandragora officinarum or mandrake is the type species of the plant genus Mandragora. As of 2015, sources differ significantly in the species they use for Mandragora plants native to the Mediterranean region. In the narrowest circumscription, M. officinarum is limited to small areas of northern Italy and the coast of former Yugoslavia, and the main species found around the Mediterranean is called Mandragora autumnalis, the autumn mandrake. In a broader circumscription, all the plants native to the countries around the Mediterranean sea are placed in M. officinarum, which thus includes M. autumnalis. The names autumn mandrake and Mediterranean mandrake are then used. Whatever the circumscription, Mandragora officinarum is a perennial herbaceous plant with ovate leaves arranged in a rosette, a thick upright root, often branched, and bell-shaped flowers followed by yellow or orange berries.
Because mandrakes contain deliriant hallucinogenic tropane alkaloids and shape of their roots often resemble human figures, they have been associated with a variety of superstitious practices throughout the history. They have long been used in magic rituals, today also in contemporary pagan traditions such as Wicca and Odinism. However, the so-called "mandrakes" used in this way are not always species of Mandragora let alone Mandragora officinarum; for example, Bryonia alba, the English mandrake, is explicitly mentioned in some sources.
Description.
Mandragora plant from Israel that some sources would place in Mandragora autumnalis rather than Mandragora officinarum
As of 2015, Mandragora officinarum has three or four different circumscriptions (see Taxonomy below). The description below applies to a broad circumscription, used in a 1998 revision of the genus, in which the name is used for all the plants native to Mediterranean region. Thus defined, Mandragora officinarum is a very variable perennial herbaceous plant with a long thick root, often branched. It has almost no stem, the leaves being borne in a basal rosette. The leaves are very variable in size and shape, with a maximum length of 45 cm (18 in). They are usually either elliptical in shape or wider towards the end (obovate), with varying degrees of hairiness.
The flowers appear from autumn to spring (September to April). They are borne in the axils of the leaves. The flower stalks (pedicels) are also very variable in length, up to 45 cm (18 in) long. The five sepals are 6?28 mm (0.2?1.1 in) long, fused together at the base and then forming free lobes to about a half to two-thirds of their total length. The five petals are greenish white to pale blue or violet in colour, 12?65 mm (0.5?2.6 in) long, and, like the sepals, joined together at the base with free lobes at the end. The lobes are between half as long as the petals to almost as long. The five stamens are joined to the bases of the petals and vary in length from 7 to 15 mm (0.3 to 0.6 in). The anthers of the stamens are usually yellow or brown, but are sometimes pale blue.
The fruit which forms in late autumn to early summer (November to June) is a berry, shaped like a globe or an ellipsoid (i.e. longer than wide), with a very variable diameter of 5?40 mm (0.2?1.6 in). When ripe, the fruit is glossy, and yellow to orange ? somewhat resembling a small tomato. It contains yellow to light brown seeds, 2.5?6 mm (0.10?0.24 in) long.
Earlier, a different circumscription was used, in which Mandragora officinarum referred only to plants found in northern Italy and part of the coast of former Yugoslavia, most Mediterranean mandrakes being placed in Mandragora autumnalis. The description above would then apply to both species combined, with M. officinarum having greenish-white rather than violet petals, up to 25 mm (1 in) long rather than usually 30?40 mm (1.2?1.6 in) or longer, and a berry that is globose rather than ellipsoid. More recently, plants native to the Levant have been separated out as Mandragora autumnalis, leaving those found in the rest of the Mediterranean area as M. officinarum. One difference then is that the size of the seeds of M. officinarum is less than half the size of those of M. autumnalis.
Taxonomy.
Mandragora officinarum was first described in 1753 by Carl Linnaeus in the first edition of Species Plantarum. It is the type species of the genus Mandragora. (Linnaeus later changed his mind and in 1759 placed M. officinarum in the genus Atropa as A. mandragora.) Linnaeus regarded M. officinarum as the sole species in the genus, at that time only known from the Mediterranean region. Jackson and Berry (1979) and Ungricht et al. (1998) have documented some of the subsequent confusion over the number of Mediterranean species of Mandragora and their scientific names. Ungricht et al. describe the confusion as "incredible" and a "morass".
The first confusion relates to the name "Mandragora officinalis Mill.", dated to 1768 in the eighth edition of Philip Miller's The gardener's dictionary. However, this work uses the epithet officinarum, not "officinalis". There is a reference to "Mandragora officinalis" as a synonym in the 9th edition of The gardener's dictionary of 1807. However, there was no such earlier use of the name, and Ungricht et al. say that "officinalis" is an orthographic error for the correct epithet officinarum, so that the name "Mandragora officinalis Mill." (and any subsequent uses of this epithet) have "no real nomenclatural standing".
The second confusion relates to the number of Mediterranean species of Mandragora (a confusion which continues). At different times, between one to five taxa have been recognized. Dioscorides was among those who distinguished between "male" and "female" mandrakes, a distinction used in 1764 when Garsault published the names Mandragora mas and Mandragora foemina. Flowering time was also used to distinguish species; thus in the 1820s, Antonio Bertoloni named two species as Mandragora vernalis, the spring-flowering mandrake, and Mandragora autumnalis, the autumn-flowering mandrake. Since the late 1990s, three main circumscriptions of Mandragora officinarum have been used and all three will be found in current sources.
Identifying the spring-flowering mandrake as Linnaeus's M. officinarum, works such as Flora Europaea list two Mediterranean species of Mandragora: M. officinarum and M. autumnalis. On this view, the main Mediterranean species is M. autumnalis rather than M. officinarum, which is a rare species, confined to northern Italy and a small region of the coast of former Yugoslavia.
Using statistical analysis of morphological characters, Ungricht et al. in 1998 found no distinct clusters among the specimens they examined and concluded that Linnaeus's M. officinarum is a single, variable species. They thus include M. autumnalis in M. officinarum, which on this view is the only Mediterranean mandrake.
M. autumnalis was again separated from M. officinarum by Tu et al. in 2010 in a molecular phylogenetic study. They regard M. officinarum as the main species in the Mediterranean, but separate out plants native to the Levant as M. autumnalis, which was then shown to be more closely related to Mandragora turcomanica than to their circumscription of M. officinarum.
Distribution and habitat.
In the circumscription in which Mandragora officinarum is the only Mediterranean species, it is native to southern Portugal and countries around the Mediterranean sea: Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco in north Africa; southern Spain, Italy, former Yugoslavia, Greece and Cyprus in southern Europe; southern Turkey; Syria, Lebanon, Israel, the Palestinian territories and Jordan in the Levant. It is usually found in open habitats, such as light woodland and disturbed sites, including olive groves, fallow land, waysides, railway embankments and ruins, from sea level to 1,200 m (3,900 ft).
When Mandragora autumnalis is regarded as the main Mediterranean species, M. officinarum is native only to north Italy and part of the coast of former Yugoslavia. Alternatively, M. officinarum is absent from the Levant, where it is replaced by M. autumnalis.
Toxicity.
All species of Mandragora contain highly biologically active alkaloids, tropane alkaloids in particular. Hanu? et al. reviewed the phytochemistry of Mandragora species. More than 80 substances have been identified; their paper gives the detailed chemical structure of 37 of them. Jackson and Berry were unable to find any differences in alkaloid composition between Mandragora officinarum (using the narrowest circumscription of this species) and Mandragora autumnalis (viewed as the main Mediterranean species). Alkaloids present in the fresh plant or the dried root included atropine, hyoscyamine, scopolamine (hyoscine), scopine, cuscohygrine, apoatropine, 3-alpha-tigloyloxytropane, 3-alpha,6-beta-ditigloyloxytropane and belladonnines. Non-alkaloid constituents included sitosterol and beta-methylesculetin (scopoletin).
The alkaloids make the plant, in particular the root and leaves, poisonous, via anticholinergic, hallucinogenic, and hypnotic effects. Anticholinergic properties can lead to asphyxiation. Ingesting mandrake root is likely to have other adverse effects such as vomiting and diarrhea. The alkaloid concentration varies between plant samples, and accidental poisoning is likely to occur. Clinical reports of the effects of consumption of Mandragora officinarum (as Mandragora autumnalis) include severe symptoms similar to those of atropine poisoning, including blurred vision, dilation of the pupils (mydriasis), dryness of the mouth, difficulty in urinating, dizziness, headache, vomiting, blushing and a rapid heart rate (tachycardia). Hyperactivity and hallucinations also occurred in the majority of patients.
Folklore.
The so-called "female" and "male" mandrakes, from a 1583 illustration
Mandrake has a long history of medicinal use, although superstition has played a large part in the uses to which it has been applied. It is rarely prescribed in modern herbalism.
The root is hallucinogenic and narcotic. In sufficient quantities, it induces a state of oblivion and was used as an anaesthetic for surgery in ancient times.[14] In the past, juice from the finely grated root was applied externally to relieve rheumatic pains. It was also used internally to treat melancholy, convulsions, and mania. When taken internally in large doses, however, it is said to excite delirium and madness.
In the past, mandrake was often made into amulets which were believed to bring good fortune, cure sterility, etc. In one superstition, people who pull up this root will be condemned to hell, and the mandrake root would scream as it was pulled from the ground, killing anyone who heard it. Therefore in the past, people have tied the roots to the bodies of animals and then used these animals to pull the roots from the soil.
In the Bible.
Two references to ?????? (dûdã'im)?literally meaning "love plant"?occur in the Jewish scriptures. The Septuagint translates ?????? (dûdã'im) as ??????????? (mandragoras), and Vulgate follows Septuagint. A number of later translations into different languages follow Septuagint (and Vulgate) and use mandrake as the plant as the proper meaning in both Genesis 30:14?16 and Song of Solomon 7:13. Others follow the example of the Luther Bible and provide a more literal translation.
In Genesis 30:14, Reuben, the eldest son of Jacob and Leah finds mandrake in a field. Rachel, Jacob's infertile second wife and Leah's sister, is desirous of the ?????? and barters with Leah for them. The trade offered by Rachel is for Leah to spend that night in Jacob's bed in exchange for Leah's ??????. Leah gives away the plant to her barren sister, but soon after this (Genesis 30:14?22), Leah, who had previously had four sons but had been infertile for a long while, became pregnant once more and in time gave birth to two more sons, Issachar and Zebulun, and a daughter, Dinah. Only years after this episode of her asking for the mandrakes did Rachel manage to become pregnant. The predominant traditional Jewish view is that ?????? were an ancient folk remedy to help barren women conceive a child.
14 And Reuben went in the days of wheat harvest, and found mandrakes in the field, and brought them unto his mother Leah. Then Rachel said to Leah, Give me, I pray thee, of thy son's mandrakes.
15 And she said unto her, Is it a small matter that thou hast taken my husband? and wouldest thou take away my son's mandrakes also? And Rachel said, Therefore he shall lie with thee to night for thy son's mandrakes.
16 And Jacob came out of the field in the evening, and Leah went out to meet him, and said, Thou must come in unto me; for surely I have hired thee with my son's mandrakes. And he lay with her that night.
?the Bible, King James Version, Genesis 30:14?16
A number of other plants have been suggested by biblical scholars,[citation needed] e.g., most notably, ginseng, which looks similar to the mandrake root and reputedly has fertility enhancing properties, for which it was picked by Reuben in the Bible; blackberries, Zizyphus lotus, the sidr of the Arabs, the banana, lily, citron, and fig. Sir Thomas Browne, in Pseudodoxia Epidemica, ch. VII, suggested the dudai'im of Genesis 30:14 is the opium poppy, because the word duda'im may be a reference to a woman's breasts.
The final verses of Song of Songs (Song of Songs 7:12?13), are:
?????? ??????? ?????? ?????????? ????????? ?????????????? ?????????????? ???????????? ???????? ??? ?????????? ?????????? ???????? ??????????? ???????? ????????????? ????? ??????? ??????????? ??????
12 Let us get up early to the vineyards; let us see if the vine flourish, whether the tender grape appear, and the pomegranates bud forth: there will I give thee my loves.
13 The mandrakes give a smell, and at our gates are all manner of pleasant fruits, new and old, which I have laid up for thee, O my beloved.
?the Bible, King James Version, Song of Songs 7:12?13
Magic and witchcraft.
Mandragora, from Tacuinum Sanitatis (1474).
According to the legend, when the root is dug up, it screams and kills all who hear it. Literature includes complex directions for harvesting a mandrake root in relative safety. For example Josephus (circa 37?100 AD) of Jerusalem gives the following directions for pulling it up:
A furrow must be dug around the root until its lower part is exposed, then a dog is tied to it, after which the person tying the dog must get away. The dog then endeavours to follow him, and so easily pulls up the root, but dies suddenly instead of his master. After this, the root can be handled without fear.
Excerpt from Chapter XVI, "Witchcraft and Spells", of Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine and Ritual by nineteenth-century occultist and ceremonial magician Eliphas Levi.
The following is taken from Paul Christian's The History and Practice of Magic:
Would you like to make a Mandragora, as powerful as the homunculus (little man in a bottle) so praised by Paracelsus? Then find a root of the plant called bryony. Take it out of the ground on a Monday (the day of the moon), a little time after the vernal equinox. Cut off the ends of the root and bury it at night in some country churchyard in a dead man's grave. For 30 days, water it with cow's milk in which three bats have been drowned. When the 31st day arrives, take out the root in the middle of the night and dry it in an oven heated with branches of verbena; then wrap it up in a piece of a dead man's winding-sheet and carry it with you everywhere.
In literature.
In its more sinister significance:
Machiavelli wrote in 1518 a play Mandragola (The Mandrake) in which the plot revolves around the use of a mandrake potion as a ploy to bed a woman.
Shakespeare refers four times to mandrake and twice under the name of mandragora.
"... Not poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world,
Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst yesterday."
Shakespeare: Othello III.iii
"Give me to drink mandragora ...
That I might sleep out this great gap of time
My Antony is away."
Shakespeare: Antony and Cleopatra I.v
"Shrieks like mandrakes' torn out of the earth."
Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet IV.iii
"Would curses kill, as doth the mandrake's groan"
King Henry VI part II III.ii
John Donne refers to it in the second line of his song, 'Go and catch a falling star', as an example of an impossible task,
"Get with child a mandrake root"
Alraune (German for Mandrake) is a novel by German novelist Hanns Heinz Ewers published in 1911.
It is in Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot, too. "Let's hang ourselves immediately!" "It'd give us an Erection!" "An Erection!" "With all that follows?where it falls, Mandrakes grow, that's why they shriek when you pull them up. Did you not know that?"
In Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling, mandrakes can be found in the Hogwarts greenhouses. When pulled out of the earth, they resemble humans, and just as in the mythology, the cry is fatal. The mandrake can also revive those who have been petrified.
In The Winter of Our Discontent by John Steinbeck, Ethan Hawley mentions both the form and legend of the mandrake root in chapter eight when describing a collection of "worthless family treasures" as follows: "We even had a mandrake root?a perfect little man, sprouted from the death-ejected sperm of a hanged man ..."
In Pan's Labyrinth by Guillermo del Toro, the Fawn, Pan, explains that a mandrake root is "A plant that dreamt of being human", and it can have healing powers if instructions are followed.
In Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett, a reference to the mandrake is made, describing a plant that lets out a supersonic scream when it is uprooted.
In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Adventure of the Devil's Foot (contained in the Sherlock Homes collection His Last Bow) a crystalline extract of "Devil's Foot Root", also called mandrake, is at the root, so to speak, of two bizarre and related murders.
In Neil Gaiman's "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" Lettie Hempstock trades a Mandrake for a shadow-bottle to attempt to send Ursula Monkton away "Mandrakes are so loud when you pull them up, and I didn't have earplugs"
In The Republic by Plato, mandrake is used in an image whereby men use it to drug a ship captain, and take control of the ship (488 c4).
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238.Lords of the Night.
In Mesoamerican mythology the Lords of the Night are a set of nine gods who each ruled over every ninth night forming a calendrical cycle. Each lord was associated with a particular fortune, bad or good, that was an omen for the night that they ruled over.
The lords of the night are known in both the Aztec and Maya calendar, although the specific names of the Maya Night Lords are unknown.
The glyphs corresponding to the night gods are known and mayanists identify them with labels G1 to G9, the G series. Generally, these glyphs are frequently used with a fixed glyph coined F. The only Mayan light lord that has been identified is the God G9,Pauahtun the Aged Quadripartite God.
The existence of a 9 nights cycle in Mesoamerican calendrics was first discovered in 1904 by Eduard Seler. The Aztec names of the Deities are known because their names are glossed in the Codex Telleriano-Remensis and Codex Tudela. Seler argued that the 9 lords each corresponded to one of the nine levels of the under world and ruled the corresponding hour of the night time, this argument has not generally been accepted, since the evidence suggests that the lord of a given night ruled over that entire night. Zelia Nuttall argued that the Nine Lords of the Night represented the nine moons of the Lunar year. The cycle of the Nine Lords of the Night held special relation to the Mesoamerican ritual calendar of 260-days and nights or -night which includes exactly 29 groups of 9 nights each, and also, approximately, 9 vague lunations of 29 days each.
The Nine Lords of the Night in Aztec mythology are:
1.Xiuhtecuhtli ("Turqoise/Year/Fire Lord")
2.Itztli/Tecpatl ("Obsidian"/"Flint")
3.Piltzintecuhtli ("Prince Lord")
4.Centeotl ("Maize God")
5.Mictlantecuhtli ("Underworld Lord")
6.Chalchiuhtlicue ("Jade Is Her Skirt")
7.Tlazolteotl ("Filth God[dess]")
8.Tepeyollotl ("Mountain Heart")
9.Tlaloc (Rain God)
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