or _mantara_, "paradise tree," and _agru_, "unmarried,
violently passionate," is hazardous and possibly far-fetched.

The Persian is _mardumgiah_, "man-like plant".

The Syro-Arabic word for it is _Yabrouh_, Aramaic _Yahb-kouh_, "giver of
life". This is possibly the source of the Chinese _Yah-puh-lu_ (Syriac
_ya-bru-ha_) and _Yah-puh-lu-Yak_. The termination _Yak_ is merely the
Turanian termination meaning "diminutive".

The interest of the Levantine terms for the mandrake lies in the fact
that they have the same significance as the word for pearl, _i.e._
"giver of life". This adds another argument (to those which I have
already given) for regarding the mandrake as a surrogate of the pearl.
But they also reveal the essential fact that led to the identification
of the plant with the Mother-Goddess, which I have already discussed.

In Arabic the mandrake is called _abou ruhr_, "father of life," _i.e._
"giver of life".[393]

In Arabic _margan_ means "coral" as well as "pearl". In the
Mediterranean area coral is explained as a new and marvellous plant
sprung from the petrified blood-stained branches on which Perseus hung
the bleeding head of Medusa. Eustathius ("Comment. ad Dionys. Perieget."
1097) derives [Greek: koralion] from [Greek: kore], personifying the
monstrous virgin: but Chaeroboscos claims that it comes from [Greek:
kore] and [Greek: alion], because it is a maritime product used to make
ornaments for maidens. In any case coral is a "giver of life" and as
such identified with a maiden,[394] as the most potential embodiment of
life-giving force. But this specific application of the word for "giver
of life" was due to the fact that in all the Semitic languages, as well
as in literary references in the Egyptian Pyramid Texts, this phrase was
understood as a reference to the female organs of reproduction. The
same _double entendre_ is implied in the use of the Greek word for "pig"
and "cowry," these two surrogates of the Great Mother, each of which can
be taken to mean the "giver of life" or the "pudendum muliebre".

Perhaps the most plausible suggestion that has been made as to the
derivation of the word "mandragora" is Delatre's claim[395] that it is
compounded of the words _mandros_, "sleep," and _agora_, "object or
substance," and that mandragora means "the sleep-producing substance".

This derivation is in harmony with my suggestion as to the means by
which the plant acquired its magical properties. The se