That living mortals hearing them run mad.'

Frequent allusions to this superstition are to be found in the old
poets, although it is held by some that the effects claimed for
decoctions of the mandrake really refer to those of the nightshade. This
confusion has certainly arisen at times, but the most general idea
concerning the mandrake was that it was a stimulant rather than a
narcotic. It is true that Shakespeare regarded mandragora as an opiate,
for he makes Cleopatra to exclaim:

'Give me to drink mandragora,
That I might sleep out this great gap of time
My Antony is away.'

And, again, when in Othello he makes Iago say:

'Nor poppy, nor mandragora,
Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world
Can ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep
Which thou owedst yesterday.'

But, on the other hand, we find Apuleius--himself, by the way, not
unsuspected of magical arts--writing that when the root of the mandrake
is steeped in wine it produces vehement intoxication. The same idea is
reflected in Mrs. Browning's Dead Pan:

'In what revels are ye sunken
In old Ethiopia?
Have the Pygmies made you drunken,
Bathing in mandragora,
Your divine pale lips that shiver
Like the lotus in the river?'

And there can be little doubt that the mysterious 'Lhasis,' referred to
by Sir William Davenant[5]--a word whose etymology is so obscure--is
nothing else than the mandrake or mandragora; if so, then we see that
the plant was valued for its exciting and stimulating effects rather
than as an opiate.

Many commentators and most dictionaries dispose of Reuben's mandrakes as
something altogether different from the plant now known by the name; but
there is really no warrant for such a conclusion. The _Mandragora
officinalis_ is quite common in Celicia, Syria, and elsewhere in the
East, and is easily identifiable with the root of Baaras, which Josephus
describes in the Wars of the Jews. This root, he says, is in colour like
to that of flame, and towards the evening it sends out a certain ray
like lightning. It is not easily to be pulled, it will not yield
quietly, and it is certain death to anyone who dares pull it, unless he
hangs it with the head downwards. As to the uses of the root, Josephus
continues: 'After all his pains in getting it, it is only valuable on
account of one virtue it hath: that if it only be brought to sick
persons, it quickly drives away those called Demons, which are no other
than