Cold aconite of years and corrupting humours

Meaning

The cold aconite of years is a poisonous-plant metaphor for ageing. It is not an instruction to include aconite in a remedy. Corrupted and corrupting humours belong to the historical physiology through which rejuvenation is imagined.

II.4.32 gives Medea's restorative power as one of the two philosophical goals pursued by Jason. The age-poison must be overcome and superfluities removed for the claimed restoration of vigour. The long uncertain voyage remains in the same account, preventing the mythic outcome from becoming a guarantee of easily obtained rejuvenation. Humours should not be equated without evidence to modern toxins, diagnoses or measurable substances.

The English retains the figurative “aconite of years” and the distinction between humours already corrupted and those actively corrupting. It adds neither a modern medical identification nor an actionable preparation.