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[13] κατ᾽ ἀσφοδελὸν λειμῶνα. There was a common plant called “ἀσφόδελος” ( Hes. Op.41“οὐδ᾽ ὅσον ἐν μαλάχῃ τε καὶ ἀσφοδέλῳ μέγ᾽ ὄνειαρ”), our King's spear, and from this name, according to the grammarians, was derived an adj. (generally made an oxytone) “ἀσφοδελός” ‘full of asphodel.’ Hence the ‘mead of asphodel’ which has become a familiar image in modern poetry. It must be pointed out, however, that the rules for the formation of nouns in Greek do not allow us to make an adj. “ἀσφοδελός” = ‘full of “ἀσφόδελος”.’

It is evidently much more probable that the adjectival use is the original one, and that the plant was so called because it had the quality (or absence of a quality) which the adj. expresses. What that quality was we are left to conjecture. In the so-called scholia Didymi we find the note “ἄκαρπον φυτὸν ὁ ἀσφόδελος”. This may be a mere guess, but it suggests an explanation which has some plausibility. The ‘meadow without fruit,’ i. e. where there is no sowing or reaping, would not be out of place in the infernal regions. On the other hand the same word might be applied to a plant which was ‘without fruit’ (or was imagined to be so). We do not know that the asphodel could be so described: but it is worth noting that the root was the part which was eaten (Theophr. H. P. 1. 10. 7).

Homer's Odyssey. W. Walter Merry. James Riddell. D. B. Monro. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1886-1901.

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    • Hesiod, Works and Days, 41
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