{{Otherusesabout|the food or drink of the gods}}

In ancient [[Greek mythology]], '''ambrosia''' ({{lang-grc|ἀμβροσία}}) is sometimes the food, sometimes the drink, of the [[Greek gods|gods]], often depicted as conferring [[immortality]] on whoever consumes it.

Ambrosia is very closely related to the gods' other form of sustenance, ''[[Nectar#Etymology|nectar]]''. The two terms may not have originally been distinguished,{{Fact|date=October 2007}} though in [[Homer]]'s poems and later works, nectar is the drink and ambrosia the food. On the other hand, in [[Alcman]], nectar is the food, and in [[Sappho]] and [[Anaxandrides]], ambrosia is the drink. Both are fragrant, and may be used as [[perfume]].{{Fact|date=October 2007}}

== Etymology ==
The word has generally been derived from Greek ''a-'' ("not") and ''mbrotos'' ("mortal"); hence the food or drink of the immortals.

The classical scholar [[Arthur Woollgar Verrall]], however, denied that there is any clear example in which the word ''ambrosios'' necessarily means ''immortal'', and preferred to explain it as "fragrant," a sense which is always suitable. If so, the word may be derived from the [[Semitic languages|Semitic]] ''MBR'' ("amber", which when burned is resinously fragrant; compare "[[ambergris]]") to which Eastern nations attribute miraculous properties. In Europe, honey-colored [[amber]], sometimes far from its natural source, was already a grave gift in [[Neolithic]] times and was still worn in the [[7th century CE]] as a talisman by [[Druidry|druidic]] [[Frisia]]ns, though St. [[Eligius]] warned "No woman should presume to hang amber from her neck."

[[W. H. Roscher]] thinks that both nectar and ambrosia were kinds of [[honey]], in which case their power of conferring immortality would be due to the supposed healing and cleansing power of honey, which is in fact aseptic, and because fermented honey ([[mead]]) preceded [[wine]] as an [[entheogen]] in the Aegean world: the Great Goddess of [[Crete]] on some Minoan seals had a [[bee]] face: compare [[Merope]] and [[Melissa]].

Additionally, some modern scholars, such as [[Danny Staples]], relate ambrosia to the [[Psychedelics, dissociatives and deliriants|hallucinogenic]] mushroom ''[[Amanita muscaria]]''.

== Examples of ambrosia in mythology ==
*[[Thetis]] anointed the infant [[Achilles]] with ambrosia and passed the child through the fire to make him immortal—a familiar [[Phoenicia]]n custom—but [[Peleus]], appalled, stopped her, leaving only his heel unimmortalised.
*In the ''[[Iliad]]'' xvi, [[Apollo]] washes the black blood from the corpse of [[Sarpedon]] and anoints it with ambrosia, readying it for its dreamlike return to Sarpedon's native [[Lycia]]. Similarly, [[Thetis]] anoints the corpse of [[Patroclus]] in order to preserve it. Additionally, both ambrosia and nectar are depicted as [[unguent]]s (xiv. 170; xix. 38).
*In the ''[[Odyssey]]'', [[Calypso (mythology)|Calypso]] is described as having "spread a table with ambrosia and set it by [[Hermes]], and mixed the rosy-red nectar." It is ambiguous whether he means the ambrosia itself is rosy-red, or if he is describing a rosy-red nectar Hermes drinks along with the ambrosia. Later, [[Circe]] mentions to [[Odysseus]]<ref>''Odyssey'' xi: "the trembling doves that carry ambrosia to Father Zeus."</ref> that a flock of doves are the bringers of ambrosia to [[Olympus]].
*One of the impieties of [[Tantalus]], according to [[Pindar]], was that he offered to his guests the ambrosia of the Deathless Ones, a theft akin to that of [[Prometheus]], [[Karl Kerenyi]] noted (in ''Heroes of the Greeks'').
*In the [[Homeric hymn]] to [[Aphrodite]], the goddess uses "ambrosian oil" as perfume, "divinely sweet, and made fragrant for her sake."

==See also==
*[[Ichor]], blood of the Greek gods, related to ambrosia.
*[[Amrita]], of [[Hindu]] mythology, a drink which confers immortality on the gods, and a [[cognate]] of ambrosia

==References==
{{reflist}}
*[[Carl A. P. Ruck|Ruck, Carl A.P.]] and [[Danny Staples]], ''The World of Classical Myth'' 1994, p. 26 et seq. [http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy/world_of.html]
*[http://47.1911encyclopedia.org/A/AM/AMBROSIA.htm ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' 1911]: Ambrosia

[[Category:Greek mythology]]
[[Category:Fictional beverages]]
[[Category:Mythological substances]]

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