Elysium

In Greek mythology, Elysium (Greek: Ηλύσια πεδία) was a section of the Underworld (the spelling Elysium is a Latinization 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 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.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).

Hesiod refers to the 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 White Isle 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 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).

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.)

Friedrich Schiller's poem, "To Joy" (An die Freude in German), and the basis for the choral portion for Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, begins with these words:

Freude, schöner Götterfunken,

Tochter aus Elysium,

Roughly translated as "Joy, shining spark of God, daughter of 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 Christianity

The extracanonical Apocalypse of Peter references Elysium in its description of Heaven:

Then will I give unto my chosen and righteous the washing and the salvation for which they have sought me, in the field of Acherusa, which is called Aneslasleja or Elysium.

"Geographic" Elysian Fields

In Harrison County, Texas, a rural community is Elysian Fields, Texas.

The New York Knickerbockers introduced modern baseball at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey. The field was a large woodland area.

In Mexico City, Campos Eliseos is a street in the Polanco neighborhood where several of the city's best hotels and restaurants are located.

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. (The following locations may take their names during French colonization)

Elysian, Minnesota of Le Sueur County, Minnesota is a "quaintly progressive" town of 550 residents.

In Nova Scotia, Canada, a rural community near Minudie, on the Bay of Chignecto.

New Orleans, Louisiana, has a major street named Elysian Fields Ave.

Elysium in popular culture

In White Wolf, Inc's the Masquerade and the Requiem role playing games, Elysium is the name of a fictional place (usually a mansion, museum, or similar building with a function that is usually formal) wherein the Prince (vampire leader of the city) has declared a sanctuary. Elysium is used for formal meetings, socialization, celebration, court, and to seek asylum. The tradition of Elysium forbids violence within its confines, meaning even a vampire wanted dead can seek relief from their persecution there. The plural form of Elysium is Elysia, and larger cities have been known to have several Elysia.

In Funcom's MMORPG, Anarchy Online, Elysium is a zone of the Shadowlands, a mystical area released in their first expansion pack (also called Shadowlands). This Elysium can seem very much like a beautiful paradise, and holds a series of boss creatures based on the greek zodiac.

In Saint Seiya, the Elysium Fields are the stage of the last battle against Emperor Hades.

Notes

References

Catholic Encyclopaedia
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.

Life after death | Ancient Greek religion