Holy Moly
In Book 10 of Homer’s Odyssey, Circe prepared a feast for Odysseus’ crew, and after the dinner the sailors all turned into pigs. Mercury tipped Oysseus and gave him a Moly herb as antidote to Circe’s portion:
As he spoke he pulled the herb out of the ground an showed me what it was like. The root was black, while the flower was as white as milk; the gods call it Moly, and mortal men cannot uproot it, but the gods can do whatever they like.
Circe, seeing that her plot had failed, then invited Odysseus to bed. They were lovers for 3 days.
Pundits debated about Moly. Some said it’s garlic, or mullein, or snowdrop. Nobody knows the true identity of this herb, or why or when it was transformed into an interjection, most often uttered by soccer moms.
The debate is moot, but the stories amaze me. They are like quantum particles, jumping around, bonding with each other, annihilating each other.
So old stories evolve into new language, like Circe’s changing moods, like sailors turning into pigs and turning back.