Myth Library · Divine Aid And Counter Enchantment

Hermes Gives Odysseus Moly

1 source witness · 1 source-scoped variant · reviewed 2026-08-30

Hermes stops Odysseus before Circe’s house, gives him moly, and explains the exact steps needed to resist her drug.

Canonical narrative

Odysseus walks toward Circe’s house knowing that his companions have been changed into swine. Hermes meets him in the shape of a young man, takes his hand, and warns that he will not return without divine help.

Hermes pulls a plant from the ground. Its root is black and its flower white; the gods call it moly, and mortals find it hard to dig. He then predicts Circe’s drug, wand, and demand, and gives Odysseus the counter-strategy: draw his sword when her spell fails and require a binding oath before accepting intimacy.

Lines 274-307 stop with Hermes’ instructions. They do not narrate the later failure of Circe’s drug or the oath itself. Moly therefore remains a divine plant in one epic encounter, not a botanical identification or a safe modern ingestion practice.

Episodes in this myth

Episode 1

The god stops Odysseus

Hermes warns that entering Circe’s house without help means capture.

Episode 2

Moly and the oath

Hermes gives the plant and explains the exact counter-strategy.

Participants and roles

Hermes

gives moly and explains how to survive Circe’s drug and oath encounter

His aid combines a divine plant with precise warning.

Odysseus

receives the plant and follows the counter-strategy

He acts to restore his companions.

Circe

divine opponent whose drug, wand, and demanded oath Hermes anticipates

Circe is not physically present in lines 274-307; Hermes describes the imminent encounter.

Source-scoped variants

The Odyssey’s moly encounter

Hermes supplies a divine plant and a sequence of warnings before Odysseus enters Circe’s house.

What differs: The plant remains divine and botanically unidentified; the oath and threatened sword are integral to the scene.

Greek Archaic · Aeaea

Source witnesses

EXPLICIT PRIMARY · Reviewed

Odyssey

Homer; translated by A. T. Murray · 1919

Book 10 · Line 274-307

Divine plant, warning, and encounter instructions.

Open reviewed source