Bulfinch’s Mythology · Chapter
Elysium explained
This chapter explores the concept of Elysium across different classical authors.
What happens
This chapter explores the concept of Elysium across different classical authors. In Virgil, Elysium is an underworld paradise for blessed spirits. Homer places it on the western edge of the world, near Ocean, as a land of eternal spring for favored heroes. Hesiod and Pindar locate it in the Isles of the Blessed or Fortunate Islands in the Western Ocean, possibly inspiring the Atlantis legend. The chapter also includes poetic references by J. R. Lowell and John Milton that evoke the imagery of these happy realms.
Themes in this chapter
Mortality and Immortality
Elysium represents a realm where favored heroes achieve a form of immortality, living in perpetual bliss without death.
Key passages
“Hither favored heroes pass without dying and live happy under the rule of Rhadamanthus.”
Selected heroes come here without experiencing death and live joyfully under Rhadamanthus's governance.
Describes the unique privilege of entering Elysium alive.
“Like those Hesperian gardens famed of old, Fortunate fields and groves and flowery vales, Thrice happy isles.”
Similar to the ancient Hesperides gardens, fortunate meadows, groves, and flowering valleys, three times blessed islands.
Milton's allusion to the Fortunate Isles in Paradise Lost.