Thone (1 syl.) or Thonis

Governor of a province of Egypt. His wife was Polydamnia. It is said by post-Homeric poets that Paris took Helen to this province, and that Polydamnia gave her a drug named nepenthes to make her forget her sorrows, and fill her with joy.

“Not that nepenthes which the wife of Thone

In Egypt gave to love-lorn Helena,

Is of such power to stir up joy as this.

Milton: Comus, 695–697

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.