Elysium

“ Ulysses found the Cimmerians, "an unhappy people, who, constantly surrounded by thick shadows, never enjoyed the rays of the sun, neither when it mounted the skies, nor when it descended below the earth." Still farther away, and in the ocean itself, and therefore beyond the limits of the earth, beyond the region of winds and seasons, the poet paints for us a Fortunate Land, which he calls Elysium, a country where tempests and winter are unknown, where a soft zephyr always blows, and where the elect of Jupiter, snatched from the common lot of mortals, enjoy a perpetual felicity. ”

“ The world I imagined so beautiful an Elysium, I find the abode of fair deceit, and corrupt and rotten at the core. Oh, life! where are thy pleasures unmingled with the alloy of pain? or is it thus in everything? No sooner do we possess it, than we discover it to be like those lovely apples of the shores of the Red Sea, very fair to look upon; but, when tasted, bitter as wormwood—rotten as dust.
Pasiphae disturbed the sad tenor of my thoughts, by directing my attention to the door, at which stood Monsieur de Serval. ”

“ Above them, too, the clouds vanished, and her head was canopied by a sky, unlike, indeed, all things and tints of earth, but which reminded her, in some degree, of the splendour of Olympus.
Proserpine, restless with delight, quitted her litter, and followed by Manto, ran forward to catch the first view of Elysium.
‘I am quite out of breath,’ said her Majesty, ‘and really must sit down on this bank of violets. Was ever anything in the world so delightful? ”

“ All the arts of society were carried to perfection in Elysium; a dull thing was never said, and an awkward thing never done. The Elysians, indeed, being highly refined and gifted, for they comprised in their order the very cream of terrestrial society, were naturally a liberal-minded race of nobles, and capable of appreciating every kind of excellence. ”

“ Everywhere may be seen an Elysium, and a Tartarus, a Paradise and a Hell; in a word, two distinguished abodes, constructed according to the imagination of the enthusiasts who have invented them; who have accommodated them to their own peculiar prejudices, to the hopes, to the fears of the people who believe in them. ”

“ Sits welcoming the heroes who have died,
While sorrowless angels ranked on either side
Stand easy in Elysium's meadow-land.
Then you come shyly through the garden gate,
Wearing a blood-soaked bandage on your head ”

“ I have myself looked upon thy future lot, and the ghosts of thy Future bask in the gardens of Elysium: amidst the asphodel and the rose they prepare the garlands of thy sweet destiny, and the Fates, so harsh to others, weave only for thee the web of happiness and love. Wilt thou then come and behold thy doom, so that thou mayest enjoy it beforehand?'
Again the heart of Ione murmured 'Glaucus' ”

“ In those fair lawns the bless'd Elysium feign'd.—In this assertion our author has the authority of Strabo. a foundation sufficient for a poet. Nor are there wanting several Spanish writers, particularly Barbosa, who seriously affirm that Homer drew the fine description of Elysium, in his fourth Odyssey, from the beautiful valleys of Spain, where, in one of his voyages, they say, he arrived. Egypt, however, seems to have a better title to this honour. The fable of Charon, and the judges of hell, are evidently borrowed from the Egyptian rites of burial, and are older than Homer. ”

“ The parallel between Celtic and early Greek conceptions of Elysium25 is wonderfully close. Both are open to favoured human beings, who are thus made immortal without death; both are exquisitely beautiful, but sensuous and unmoral. In both are found islands ruled by goddesses who sometimes love mortals; both are oversea, while a parallel to the síd Elysium underground may be found in the later Greek tradition of Elysium as a region of Hades, which may have had roots in an earlier period.26 The main difference is the occasional Celtic view of Elysium as a place where gods are at war. ”

“ ELYSIUM, called by many beautiful Celtic names, is the gods' land and is never associated with the dead. The living were occasionally invited there, however, and either remained perpetually or returned to earth, where sometimes they found themselves decrepit and aged; time had lapsed like a dream, because they were in the immortal land and had tasted its immortal food. Many tales already cited have shown different conceptions of its situation—in the síd, on a mysterious island, or beneath the waters; or the gods create it on earth or produce it by glamour to mortal eyes. ”

“ To be of those whom Lethe should wash clear
Of all they once had been, and all they were:—
That Elysium’s a waiting-room for life;
Life a dust-heap for trials, failures, strife [78]
That men are Shadows all, expecting doom,
Whether flesh, or to shift it in a tomb. ”

“ After less than two weeks, this scout team had beamed back to Earth the message that the planet was suitable for colonization, so suitable that they would like to give it the name of Elysium, if there was no objection.
There would be none, Earth had replied, so long as the pioneers bore in mind the fact that six other planets had previously been given that name, and a human colony currently existed on only one of those. No need to worry about a conflict of nomenclature, however, because the name of that other planet Elysium had subsequently been changed by unanimous vote of settlers to Hades. ”

“ From this Elysium a way led to Arali, the abode of the dead in general.
That abode is described as ‘a gloomy realm beneath the earth, wherein the spirits of the dead flit about in darkness, with dust and mud for their food and drink.’ [54] No hint is there of reward or punishment; the same dreary lot awaits the evil and the good alike so soon as they have quitted the light of day. The only attempt at a differential treatment is found in that aristocratic conception of Elysium which provides a place there for heroes and great men alone ”

“ ELYSIUM, n. An imaginary delightful country which the ancients foolishly believed to be inhabited by the spirits of the good. This ridiculous and mischievous fable was swept off the face of the earth by the early Christians -- may their souls be happy in Heaven! ”

“ The idea that Elysium is co-extensive with this world and hidden in a mist is perhaps connected with the belief in the magical powers of the gods. As the Druids could raise a mist at will, so too might the gods, who then created a temporary Elysium in it. From such a mist, usually on a hill, supernatural beings often emerged to meet mortals, and in Märchen fairyland is sometimes found within a mist.1259 It was already believed that part of the gods' land was not far off ”

“ Then I saw a bright light, and I found myself in the presence of the gods." This was the autopsy.
What mystagogy exhibited in the sanctuaries, poets, and even philosophers, in their fictions, publicly taught to the people: hence the descriptions of the Elysium and of the Tartarus found in Homer, Virgil and Plato, and all those given us by many systems of theology. We never had a description of the earth and of its inhabitants, a description as complete as that transmitted to us, by the ancients, about those countries of new creation, known under the names of Hell, Tartarus, and Elysium. ”

“ In {385} the most primitive form of the tales the theft was doubtless from the underworld of gods of fertility, the place whither the dead went. But with the rise of myths telling of a distant Elysium, it was inevitable that some tales should connect the animals and the theft with that far-off land. So far as the Irish and Welsh tales are concerned, the thefts seem mainly to be from Elysium.1296
Love-making has a large place in the Elysium tales. Goddesses seek the love of mortals, and the mortal desires to visit Elysium because of their enticements. ”

“ "Ye furies," she cries, "and dreadful Styx, ye sufferings of the damned, and Chaos, for ever eager to destroy the fair harmony of worlds, and thou, Pluto, condemned to an eternity of ungrateful existence, Hell, and Elysium, of which no Thessalian witch shall partake, Proserpine, for ever cut off from thy health-giving mother, and horrid Hecate, Cerebrus [Errata: read Cerberus] ”

“ In the Tartarian regions there is a place supposed to abound with all kinds of pleasures and delights, called Elysium, because thither the souls of good men are conveyed after being freed from the body. This is the heathen paradise, consisting of pleasant plains, the most verdant fields, the shadiest groves, and the finest and most temperate air that can be found. After the souls of the pious have spent many ages in these Elysian fields, they drink the water of the river Lethe, which makes them forget all things past; and then they return to the world and pass into new bodies. ”

“ An earthly hunter may hunt in Elysium: possibly a warrior may be imagined as finding new and ghostly enemies to overthrow. But could it be for a moment supposed that a woman would spend her time in Hades in repetitions of sickness and death, or that a physician would find there need for the exercise of his old craft? It is thus abundantly clear that in some at least of the Attic reliefs the backward look prevails.
The class of reliefs from which we may best illustrate the two different fashions of interpretation is the very large class in which is represented hand-giving, the Greek δεξίωσις. ”

“ And own if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this, it is this. ”

“ Only when the hope of Elysium has become just as universal as the fear of Hades, does the latter become a place of punishment, and the former a region of rewards. Just as language itself is very much richer in words denoting forms of suffering than in those for joy, so also does the mythological imagination exhibit much greater fertility in the portrayal of the pains of the underworld than in the glorification of the Elysian fields. All the horrors that human cruelty can invent are carried over from the judicial administration of this world into that of the beyond. ”

“ Young men of respectable inclinations, who have lived for several years in a society composed principally of scoundrels, and modified only by the occasional presence of an honest miner or a respectable mule-driver, would have considered as Elysium a place far less proper and agreeable than Hardhack. ”

“ When at length he reached the practical application, verily every one was like the others; in each he formed and sowed an Arcadia full of human angels, who in three minutes could cross over on a Charon's pontoon thrown in for the purpose, and land in the Elysium which floated so near: in every one of these practical applications all men were saints, all saints beatified; all mornings blossoms, and all evenings fruit; Liana perfectly well, and he not far from it—her lover;—all nations ascended more easily the noonday heights ”

“ Now, I hold that, in most matrimonial instances, it is as well to provide for repentance; and wealth has its advantages and its alleviations in affairs of the heart, as in all other affairs. It was by means of a golden bough that Æneas passed the evil spirits of Tartarus, and gained Elysium in safety." ”

“ Virgil places in the Elysium the heroes who laid down their lives for the defense of their country; also the inventors of arts, and all those who have been useful to their fellow men, and have a title to their gratitude. It was to strengthen this idea that apotheosis was instituted; hence it was taught in the mysteries that Hercules, Bacchus, and the Dioscores were but men, who, by their virtues and their services had obtained immortality. Afterwards the Romans placed Scipio in the Elysium. Cicero ascribed a high station in the Elysium to the true patriots ”

“ Since a given individual in Elysium who died of, say, hay-fever has traversed all its stages, and is naturally more conversant with it than any terrestrial doctor can ever be, knowing thereof not only the stages passing on earth but also those going on beyond the Rainbow; he is in the best of positions to advise a patient what to do and what not to do. ”

“ They have drawn a picture of Tartarus in the most gloomy and horrific colors, where men, who had been remarkable for impiety to the gods, such as Tantalus, Tityus and Sisyphus, were tormented with a variety of misery ingeniously adapted to their crimes.
The prospect of Elysium is beautiful and inviting, as described by Homer, Hesiod and Pindar. In that delightful region there is no inclement weather, but the soft zephyrs blow from the ocean to refresh the inhabitants who live without care and anxiety; there the sky is always serene and the sunshine is perpetual. ”

“ The good emperors are admitted to the table with honors; but the bad ones are hurled headlong down into Tartarus, amidst the derisive shouts of the spectators.
As the notion that the wrath of the gods would pursue their enemies in the future state gave rise to a belief in the punishments of Tartarus, so the notion that the distinguishing kindness of the gods would follow their favorites gave rise to the myth of Elysium. The Elysian Fields were earliest portrayed lying on the western margin of the earth, stretching from the verge of Oceanus, where the sun set at eve. ”

“ I shall have lived a year beyond the earth, I shall already have forgotten the earth,—but nevertheless, but, O God, if Thou shouldst let the tones above my grave penetrate into Elysium, then should I sink down and shed hot tears and stretch out my arms and cry: Yes! here in eternity I love him still,—may it fare well with him on the earth, may his soft heart repose softly and long on life below there!—No, not long! Come up hither, mortal, to the Immortals, that thine eye may be healed, and see the friend who died for thee! ”