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asphodel

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asphodel

Either of two related Old World plants of the lily family. The white asphodel or king's spear (Asphodelus albus) is found in Italy and Greece, sometimes covering large areas, and providing grazing for sheep. The other asphodel is the yellow asphodel (Asphodeline lutea). (Genera Asphodelus and Asphodeline, family Liliaceae.)

The ancient Greeks connected the beautiful plants of A. lutea with the dead, and they were supposed to grow in the mythological Elysian fields where heroes enjoyed new life after death.



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ONE pleasant day in the latter part of eternity, as the Shades of all the great writers were reposing upon beds of asphodel and moly in the Elysian fields, each happy in hearing from the lips of the others nothing but copious quotation from his own works (for so Jove had kindly bedeviled their ears), there came in among them with triumphant mien a Shade whom none knew.
After him I saw huge Orion in a meadow full of asphodel driving the ghosts of the wild beasts that he had killed upon the mountains, and he had a great bronze club in his hand, unbreakable for ever and ever.
They know not how much more the half is than the whole, nor what great advantage there is in mallow and asphodel (1).
 
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