Irlandos at 13:19, September 3, 2006

2006-09-03T13:19:31Z

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In [[Greek mythology]], '''[[Elysium]]''' ([[Greek language|Greek]]: '''Ηλύσια πεδία''') was a section of the [[Greek Underworld|Underworld]] (the spelling ''Elysium'' is a Latinization of the [[Greek language|Greek]] word '''''Elysion'''''). Elysium is an obscure and mysterious name that evolved from a designation of a place or person struck by lightning, ''enelysion, enelysios.'' Alternately, scholars have also suggested that Greek '''''Elysion''''' may instead derive from the Egyptian term '''''ialu''''' (older '''''iaru'''''), meaning "reeds," with specific reference to the "Reed fields" (Egyptian: '''''sekhet iaru''''' / '''''ialu'''''), a paradisiacal land of plenty where the dead hoped to spend eternity.

The '''Elysian fields''', or sometimes '''[[Elysian plains]]''', were the final resting place of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous. Two [[Homer|Homeric]] passages in particular established for Greeks the nature of the Afterlife: the dreamed apparition of the dead [[Patroclus]] in the ''[[Iliad]]'' and the more daring boundary-breaking visit in Book 11 of the ''[[Odyssey]]''. Greek traditions concerning funerary ritual were reticent, but the Homeric examples encouraged other heroic visits, in the myth cycles centered around [[Theseus]] and [[Heracles]].

The Elysian Fields lay on the western margin of the earth, by the encircling stream of [[Oceanus]], and there the mortal relatives of the king of the gods were transported, without tasting death, to enjoy an immortality of bliss (''Odyssey'' 4.563). Lesser spirits were less fortunate: an eerie passage describes the twittering bat-like ghosts of Penelope's slain suitors, led by Hermes
:''"down the dank
:''moldering paths and past the [[Oceanus|Ocean]]'s streams they went
:''and past the White Rock and the Sun's Western Gates and past
:''the Land of Dreams, and soon they reached the fields of asphodel
:''where the dead, the burnt-out wraiths of mortals make their home"
(''Odyssey'' 24.5-9, translation by Robert Fagles).

[[Hesiod]] refers to the [[Fortunate Isles|Isles of the Blessed]] (''makarôn nêsoi'') in the Western Ocean (''[[Works and Days]]''). [[Pindar]] makes it a single island. Walter Burkert notes the connection with the motif of far-off Dilmun: "Thus Achilles is transported to the [[Snake Island (Black Sea)|White Isle]] and becomes the Ruler of the [[Black Sea]], and [[Diomedes]] becomes the divine lord of an Adriatic island."

In Elysium were fields of the pale liliaceous asphodel, and poplars grew. There stood the gates that led to the house of ''Ais'' (in Attic dialect "[[Hades]]").

In Virgil's Aeneid, [[Aeneas]], like Heracles and Odysseus before him, travels to the underworld. Virgil describes an encounter in Elysium between Aeneas and his father [[Anchises]]. Virgil's Elysium knows perpetual spring and shady groves, with its own sun and lit by its own stars: ''solemque suum, sua sidera norunt'' (''Aeneid'', 6.541).

==See also==
*[[Tartarus]] (Greek hell)

==References==
*Walter Burkert, ''Greek Religion'', 1985.
*Joseph Campbell, ''The Hero with a Thousand Faces'', 1948.
*Carl A.P. Ruck and Danny Staples, ''The World of Classical Myth'', 1994.

{{Credit wikipedia}}

[[Category:Ancient Greek religion]]
[[Category:Locations in Greek mythology]]

Elysian fields - Revision history

Irlandos at 13:19, September 3, 2006