A kind of plant, which also, when burning, drives away snakes.[1]
Aristophanes [writes]: "you would smell of calamint".[1] Something that drives away a snake.
*kalami/nqh: ei)=dos bota/nhs, h(/tis kai\ o)/feis e)lau/nei kaiome/nh. *)aristofa/nhs: su\ de/ t' o)/zois kalami/nqhs. o)/fews e)latikh/.
[1] LSJ gloss
kala/minqos or
kalami/nqh as "catmint," which would be
Nepeta cataria, known to Americans as "catnip." Calamint, however, is properly "a genus of aromatic herbs,
Calaminta, ... including the Common Calamint ... formerly in repute for its medicinal properties, Lesser Calamint (
C. Nepeta [!]) ... and several other species" (OED 1971). See web address 1. We cannot be sure which of these related plants
Aristophanes actually had in mind. Calamint is mentioned again at
mu 1083.
[2]
Aristophanes,
Ecclesiazusae 648, with comment from the
scholia there.
No. of records found: 1
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