Notes (edited from Wikipedia) In Homer’s Odyssey, Elysium is described as a paradise: (...)to the Elysian plain…where life is easiest for men. No snow is there, nor heavy storm, nor ever rain, but ever does Ocean send up blasts of the shrill-blowing West Wind that they may give cooling to men The Greek oral poet Hesiod refers to the Isles of the Blessed in his didactic poem Works and Days. In his book Greek Religion, Walter Burkert notes the connection with the motif of far-off Dilmun: Thus Achilles is transported to the White Isle, which may refer to Mount Teide on Tenerife, whose volcano is often snowcapped and as the island was sometimes called the white isle by explorers, and becomes the Ruler of the Black Sea, and Diomedes becomes the divine lord of an Adriatic island. And they live untouched by sorrow in the islands of the blessed along the shore of deep-swirling Ocean, happy heroes for whom the grain-giving earth bears honey-sweet fruit flourishing thrice a year, far from the deathless gods, and Cronos rules over them *See notes Pindars Odes describes the reward waiting for those living a righteous life: The good receive a life free from toil, not scraping with the strength of their arms the earth, nor the water of the sea, for the sake of a poor sustenance. But in the presence of the honored gods, those who gladly kept their oaths enjoy a life without tears, while the others undergo a toil that is unbearable to look at. Those who have persevered three times, on either side, to keep their souls free from all wrongdoing, follow Zeus road to the end, to the tower of Cronus, where ocean breezes blow around the island of the blessed, and flowers of gold are blazing, some from splendid trees on land, while water nurtures others. With these wreaths and garlands of flowers they entwine their hands according to the righteous counsels of Rhadamanthys, whom the great father, the husband of Rhea whose throne is above all others, keeps close beside him as his partner Virgils Elysium knows perpetual spring and shady groves, with its own sun and lit by its own stars: solemque suum, sua sidera norunt. In no fixd place the happy souls reside. In groves we live, and lie on mossy beds, By crystal streams, that murmur thro the meads: But pass yon easy hill, and thence descend; The path conducts you to your journeys end.” This said, he led them up the mountains brow, And shews them all the shining fields below. They wind the hill, and thro the blissful meadows go. Post-classical literature Elysium as a pagan expression for paradise would eventually pass into usage by early Christian writers. After the Renaissance, an even cheerier Elysium evolved for some poets. Sometimes it is imagined as a place where heroes have continued their interests from their lives. Others suppose it is a location filled with feasting, sport, song; Joy is the daughter of Elysium in Friedrich Schillers ode To Joy. When in William Shakespeares Twelfth Night shipwrecked Viola is told This is Illyria, lady., And what should I do in Illyria? My brother he is in Elysium. is her answer: Elysium for her and her first Elizabethan hearers simply means Paradise.
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 19:39:12 +0000
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