Information AboutElysium |
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In Greek Mythology , Elysium was a section of the Underworld (the spelling ''Elysium'' is a Latin ization of the 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.''Burkert 1985 p. 198. 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 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 .Campbell 1948; Ruck and Staples 1994. 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 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 ). and becomes the Ruler of the Black Sea , and Diomedes becomes the divine lord of an Adriatic island."Burkert 1985, p. 198. In Elysium were fields of the pale liliaceous Asphodel , and Poplar s 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). ELYSIUM IN POST-CLASSICAL LITERATURE ]] Elysium was a pagan expression that passed into the usage of the Christian Patristic writers as a synonym for Paradise . Some confuse Dante's idea of the Elysian Fields with Limbo—he described Limbo as the very upper level of hell, a place of peace that the unbaptized and the non-believers who lived virtuous lives go. It is a place of happiness, but it is closed off from God and thus remains as hell. In the Renaissance , the heroic population of the Elysian Fields tended to outshine its formerly dreary pagan reputation; the Elysian Fields borrowed some of the bright allure of Paradise . In Paris , the Champs-Élysées retain their name of the Elysian Fields, first applied in the late 16th Century to a formerly rural outlier beyond the formal Parterre gardens behind the royal French palace of the Tuileries . After the Renaissance, as images of Valhalla entered the popular European imagination, 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 Schiller 's '' Ode To Joy ''. When in William Shakespeare 's '' 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, and "Elysium" for her and her first Elizabethan hearers simply means Paradise . In Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera ''The Magic Flute'', Elysium is mentioned in Act II during Papagino's solo while he describes what it would be like if he had his dream girl: "Des Lebens als Weiser mich freun, Und wie im Elysium sein." (Enjoy life as a wiseman, And feel like I'm in Elysium.) The New Orleans neighborhood of the Elysian Fields mentioned in Tennessee Williams' '' A Streetcar Named Desire '' is ironically the declassé purgatory where Blanche Dubois lives with Stanley and Stella Kowalski. The Elysian Fields of New Orleans are the second act setting in the second act of Elmer Rice 's '' The Adding Machine . In the fiction of J. R. R. Tolkien , the Undying Lands , the home of the gods, elves, and a select few others, and is based on stories of Elysium. A combination of Olympus and Elysium, the Undying lands can only be reached by crossing the western sea, much like one would have to cross the stream of Oceanus to reach the underworld in greek mythology. The latter could be more related to the Fortunate Isles myth. ELYSIUM IN NEOPAGANISM Many Neopagans today, particularly Hellenic neopagans in the United States , have what most would consider a New-age view of Elysium. Elysium is seen as a multi-layered paradise, or Heaven , to many modern neopagans. Some believe that the outer layer of Elysium is composed of great and beautiful fields, often envisioned in imaginative descriptions as having green glowing blades of grass and bubbling springs of glowing water and wine, often made from the nectar of Ambrosia . Beyond the fields of Elysium, reserved only for the most righteous and virtuous, is the ''Golden City'' where spirits exist in a state of constant euphoria. Whether or not such beliefs are based in actual mythology often seems rather unimportant to many neopagans. Most claim that old myths are simply mortal accounts and interpretations of the divine, but the same could be argued about any current beliefs regarding Elysium. "GEOGRAPHIC" ELYSIAN FIELDS In Nova Scotia, Canada , a rural community near Minudie, on the Bay of Chignecto. In Harrison County, Texas , a rural community is Elysian Fields, Texas . New Orleans, Louisiana , filled with French place names, has a major street named Elysian Fields Ave. Elysian, Minnesota of Le Sueur County, Minnesota is a "quaintly progressive" town of 550 residents. In Paris, France , the avenue that starts at the Place De La Concorde and ends in the Arc De Triomphe is the famous Avenue Des Champs Élysées . Alexander Cartwright invented modern Baseball at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey . In Mexico City , Campos Eliseos is a street in Polanco neighbourhood where several of the city's best hotels and restaurants are located. SEE ALSO
Elysian Fields is also part of the 14th fairway on the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland. Elysian Fields has long been said to be the flattest fairway on an otherwise undulating seaside golf course. NOTES REFERENCES
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