[The AMAIC would give the priority to Jonah, instead]
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The "kikayon"
In the second part of Jonah's story, the word
kikayon is a famous hapax
legomenon which, in its context,
refers to a plant, with later tradition hesitating between a type of gourd and
ricinus communis (castor
oil).**36** Many interesting explanations have been offered, none of them
entirely convincing.**37** No one seems to have noticed, however, that this
word sounds very much like the brew prepared by Medea, kukeon or kukaon (from the verb kukaô, to stir up, to create confusion), in Apollonius'
version and in the Argonautica Orphica.**38** Here, a mysterious potion, a mixture made
of medicinal and dangerous plants,**39** is used by Medea to put to sleep the
serpent or dragon guarding the tree where the fleece was hanging. In
Apollonius, Medea rubs the head of the monster with the potion and sprinkles it
to achieve the same result. In some later (Roman) representations, she is shown
presenting a vial to the serpent coiled around the tree, while Jason, unseen,
grabs the Golden Fleece. The kukaon or kikaon is also the name of the drink of barley gruel and
water, associated with Eleusinian mysteries,**40** where perhaps the role of the
python had been similar to that of the sea monster in ancient versions of the
tradition. The problem is that the kikayon of the Hebrew story is obviously a fast-growing
plant, not a potion or brew. Yet, the Greek magic mixture is clearly made with
pharmacological plants. Furthermore, whatever the Hebrew
kikayon denotes, it acts as an
emetic or aims at making Jonah rid himself of his anger, in a punning parallel
with his disgorgement from the fish. I would like to suggest, then, that the
kikayon of the book of Jonah
may have lost its original meaning but has retained the idea of a magic act,
perhaps together with the emetic or purging virtue of the original, suggested by
the Hebrew sound (wayaqe` in
Jonah 2.11, from the verb
qi`) associated later with
other plants, such as the ricinus. In the Hebrew text also, the dragon has been
reduced to a worm, an annoyance whose night work, however, makes Jonah wish for
death. In the second part of Jonah's story, there is no magician (daughter of a
king) or any dragon to be put to sleep. There is, however, a gleeful and absurd
reduction of the Greek monster to the size of a worm and the fire-breathing of
an irate Jonah whom God attempts to calm down.
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Wow very interesting, thank you
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