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"And this majestic feeling
remains with me for over three days: so
persistently does the speech and voice of the
orator ring in my ears that it is scarcely on the
fourth or fifth day that I recover myself and
remember that I really am here on earth, whereas
till then I almost imagined myself to be living in
the Islands of the Blessed, —so expert are our
orators." [Plato, Menexenus 235c]
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Elysium and rebirth
|
After death, the souls of the righteous are sent
by the immortals to the Elysian Plain (Elysium), a
favoured region in
Hades. In the Elysian
Plain which is "at the ends of the earth"
"... life is
easiest for men. No snow is there, nor heavy storm,
nor ever rain, but ever does Ocean send up blasts
of the shrill-blowing West Wind that they may give
cooling to men ..." [Homer,
Odyssey
4.561ff.]
Pindar (518-438 BC), in one of his
thrénoi (the thrénos is
a dirge or song of lamentation) describes Elysium
as follows:
"For them doth
the strength of the sun shine below,
While night all the earth doth overstrow.
In meadows of roses their suburbs lie,
Roses all tinged with a crimson dye.
They are shaded by trees that incense bear,
And trees with golden fruit so fair.
Some with horses and sports of might,
Others in music and draughts delight.
Happiness there grows ever apace,
Perfumes are wafted o'er the loved place,
As the incense they strew where the gods' altars
are
And the fire that consumes it is seen from
afar." [quoted by Plutarch,
Moralia:
Letter to Apollonius 35 (120c)]
According to Pindar [Oly.2.55-75], the lawless
spirits are immediately punished after death:
"... the
reckless souls of those who have died on earth
immediately pay the penalty—and for the crimes
committed in this realm of
Zeus there is a judge below the earth;
with hateful compulsion he passes his
sentence."
On the other hand the good lead an easy
existence:
"But having
the sun always in equal nights and equal days, the
good receive a life free from toil, not scraping
with the strength of their arms the earth, nor the
water of the sea, for the sake of a poor
sustenance. But in the presence of the honored
gods, those who gladly kept their oaths enjoy a
life without tears, while the others undergo a toil
that is unbearable to look at."
Apparently, however, they will not remain in
Elysium forever:
"Those who
have persevered three times, on either side, to
keep their souls free from all wrongdoing, follow
Zeus' road to the end, to the tower of
Cronos, where ocean breezes blow around
the island of the blessed, and flowers of gold are
blazing, some from splendid trees on land, while
water nurtures others."
Rather, after three lifetimes, the souls of the
good are conveyed to the Island of the Blest, ruled
by Cronos and Rhea:
"With these
wreaths and garlands of flowers they entwine their
hands according to the righteous counsels of
Rhadamanthys, whom the great father, the husband of
Rhea whose throne is above all others,
keeps close beside him as his partner."
In Plato [Meno 81b], Socrates appears
commenting on Pindar:
"They say that
the soul of man is immortal, and at one time comes
to an end, which is called dying, and at another is
born again, but never perishes."
Then Pindar is quoted:
"For from
whomsoever
Persephone shall accept requital for ancient
wrong [pénthos], the souls of these she restores
in the ninth year to the upper sun again; from them
arise glorious kings and men of splendid might and
surpassing wisdom, and for all remaining time are
they called holy heroes amongst mankind."
Pindar is regarded here as adhering to the idea
of reincarnation. Much later, also Virgil (70-19
BC) agrees with it in his own description of
Elysium [Aeneid 6.637ff.], although for this
author some souls are destined for reincarnation
and others aren't.
Aeneas' father
Anchises 1 will not
reincarnate; he says:
"Each of us
suffers his own spirit: a few of us are later
released to wander at will through broad Elysium,
the joyous fields; until, in the fullness of time
... nothing is left but pure ethereal sentience and
the pure flame of the spirit." [Virgil,
Aeneid
6.742].
Those who are destined for reincarnation drink
from the waters of the river Lethe (Oblivion)
before they are reborn. Virgil describes Elysium
thus:
"Here an
ampler ether clothes the meads with roseate light,
and they know their own sun, and stars of their
own. Some disport their limbs on the grassy
wrestling-ground, vie in sports, and grapple on the
yellow sand; some foot the rhythmic dances and
chant poems aloud ..." [Virgil,
Aeneid
6.637]
Pindar could be one of the first poets to have
introduced the idea of reincarnation. Yet Porphyry
(c. AD 233-305) believes that Pythagoras (570-497
BC) was the first to introduce in Greece the idea
of the transmigration of the souls
(metempsychosis):
"But it became
very well known to everyone that he said, first,
that the soul is immortal; then, that it changes
into other kinds of animals; and further, that at
certain periods whatever has happened happens
again, there being nothing absolutely new; and that
all living things should be considered as belonging
to the same kind. Pythagoras seems to have been the
first to introduce these doctrines into
Greece." [Porphyry, Life of
Pythagoras 19]
And Diogenes Laertius
[Lives
of Eminent Philosophers 8.4-5], the
mythographer Hyginus [Fabulae 112], and
Diodorus Siculus [10.6.1-3] narrate how Euphorbus,
who was killed at Troy by
Menelaus
[Hom.Il.17.60], later reincarnated as
Pythagoras.
Herodotus, however, believes that the idea of
metempsychosis came from Egypt:
"The Egyptians
were the first who maintained the following
doctrine, too, that the human soul is immortal, and
at the death of the body enters into some other
living thing then coming to birth; and after
passing through all creatures of land, sea, and
air, it enters once more into a human body at
birth, a cycle which it completes in three thousand
years. There are Greeks who have used this
doctrine, some earlier and some later, as if it
were their own..." [Herodotus,
History
2.123.2]
Still Empedocles, a contemporary of Pindar, is
known for having embraced the Pythagorean notion of
metempsychosis.
For some, these news about reincarnation were
not good news. Otherwise they hadn't said:
"Not to be
born at all is best, far best that can befall. Next
best, when born, with least delay to trace the
backward way. For when youth passes with its giddy
train, troubles on troubles follow, toils on toils
... Last comes the worst and most abhorred stage of
unregarded age, joyless, companionless and slow, of
woes the crowning woe." [Citizens of
Colonus. Sophocles,
Oedipus
at Colonus 1225]
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The Islands of the Blest
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The Islands of the Blest is a place where
the virtuous dwell after death, retaining their
faculties and enjoying a life free of care. This is
probably the last abode of the righteous soul (and
no reincarnation seems to affect those living in
these islands).
According to some, the Islands of the Blest were
by the western limits of Libya, that is, beyond the
pillars of Hercules (Gibraltar) in the Atlantic
Ocean, or as Strabo says:
"... even
calling by name certain Isles of the Blest, which,
as we know, are still now pointed out, not very far
from the headlands of Maurusia that lie opposite to
Gades [now Cádiz]." [Strabo,
Geography
3.2.13]
Above all these islands were a place "untouched
by sorrow", where a blessed life could be lived
after death. They were thus associated or
identified with
Elysium
(the Elysian Plain, also called Elysian Fields),
which was "at the ends of the earth". According to
Strabo, this expression refers to the West:
"For both the
pure air and the gentle breezes of Zephyrus
properly belong to this country, since the country
is not only in the west but also warm; and the
phrase 'at the ends of the earth' properly belongs
to it, where Hades has been 'mythically placed,' as
we say." [Strabo,
Geography
3.2.13]
On his descent to the
Underworld,
Aeneas meets his father
Anchises 1 in Elysium
(a part of Hades).
There dwell souls who have not yet been born, and
other souls who drink from the waters of the river
Lethe (Oblivion) before they are reborn. [For the
descent of Aeneas, see
Map of the
Underworld].
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The White Isle
|
The White Isle—also a place where
some were sent after death—was supposed to be
a wooded island at the mouths of the river Ister
(Danube).
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List
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List of those who, after
death, were sent to the Island(s)
of the Blest, the White Isle, or
the Elysian Plain (also called
the Elysian Fields). Not seldom,
they are couples
(Achilles
and
Medea,
Alcmena
and Rhadamanthys,
Menelaus
and
Helen).
Alternative versions are given as
"a)", "b)", etc. Pindar sings of
the Island of the Blest (in
singular).
Several accounts on the White
Isle belong to Leonymus, king of
Crotona (city in southern Italy)
who made war against the Locri in
Italy, and was the first to sail
to the island, at the mouths of
the Ister (Danube). There he saw
the souls of the AIANTES
(Ajax 1
and Ajax
2),
Helen
(wedded to
Achilles),
Patroclus
1, and Antilochus (one of the
ACHAEAN
LEADERS [Pau.3.19.12ff.].
[For Elysium in Virgil, see
Map
of the Underworld]
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Person
|
Sent, after death, to:
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Together with:
|
According to:
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Achilles
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a) White Isle
b) White Isle
c) Islands of the Blest
d) Island of the Blest
e) Elysian Plain
f) White Isle
g) Elysian Plain
h) Elysian Plain
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a)
Iphigenia
b) Helen
c) Medea
d) ---
e) Medea
f) ---
g) ---
h) Polyxena 1
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a) Lib.Met.27.
b) Pau.3.19.13
c) Apd.Ep.5.5.
d) Pin.Oly.2.78.
e) Arg.4.811.
f) AETH.1.
g) QS.14.223.
h) Seneca, Troades 938
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Ajax 1
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White Isle
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Pau.3.19.13
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Ajax 2
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White Isle
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Pau.3.19.13
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Alcmena
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Islands of the Blest
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Rhadamanthys
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Lib.Met.33
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Antilochus
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White Isle
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Pau.3.19.13
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Cadmus
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a) Elysian Plain
b) Islands of the Blest.
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a) Harmonia 1
b) ---
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a) Apd.3.5.4; Hyg.Fab.6.
b)Pin.Oly.2.78.
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Diomedes 2
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Islands of the Blest
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Ath.15.695.
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Harmonia 1
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Elysian Plain
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Cadmus
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Apd.3.5.4
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Helen
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a) Elysian Plain
b) White Isle
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a)
Menelaus.
b) Achilles.
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a) Apd.Ep.6.29.
b) Pau.3.19.13
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Iphigenia
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White Isle
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Achilles
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Lib.Met.27
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Lycus 2
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Islands of the Blest
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Apd.3.10.1
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Medea
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Islands of the Blest
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Achilles
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Apd.Ep.5.5
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Memnon
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Elysian Plain
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QS.2.650.
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Menelaus
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Elysian Plain
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Helen
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Apd.Ep.6.29.
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Neoptolemus
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Elysian Plain
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QS.3.760.
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Patroclus
1
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White Isle
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Pau.3.19.13
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Peleus
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Island of the Blest.
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Pin.Oly.2.78.
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Penelope
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Islands of the Blest
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TEL.1.
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Rhadamanthys
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a) Islands of the Blest
b) Island of the Blest
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a)
Alcmena
b) ---
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a) Lib.Met.33
b) Pin.Oly.2.78
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Telegonus 3.
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Islands of the Blest
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TEL.1.
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Selected references
to the Islands of the Blest, the Elysian Plain, and
the White Isle:
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Hesiod, Works and
Days 155-173:
"But when earth had
covered this generation also,
Zeus the son of
Cronos made yet another, the
fourth, upon the fruitful earth, which was
nobler and more righteous, a god-like race
of hero-men who are called demi-gods, the
race before our own, throughout the
boundless earth. Grim war and dread battle
destroyed a part of them, some in the land
of
Cadmus at seven-gated Thebes
when they fought for the flocks of
Oedipus, and some, when it had
brought them in ships over the great sea
gulf to Troy for rich-haired
Helen's sake: there death's end
enshrouded a part of them. But to the
others father
Zeus the son of
Cronos gave a living and an
abode apart from men, and made them dwell
at the ends of earth. And they live
untouched by sorrow in the islands of the
blessed along the shore of deep-swirling
Ocean, happy heroes for whom the
grain-giving earth bears honey-sweet fruit
flourishing thrice a year, far from the
deathless gods, and
Cronos rules over them; for the
father of men and gods released him from
his bonds."
Pindar, Olympian Odes
2.51-85:
"... the reckless
souls of those who have died on earth
immediately pay the penalty—and for
the crimes committed in this realm of
Zeus there is a judge below
the earth; with hateful compulsion he
passes his sentence. But having the sun
always in equal nights and equal days, the
good receive a life free from toil, not
scraping with the strength of their arms
the earth, nor the water of the sea, for
the sake of a poor sustenance. But in the
presence of the honored gods, those who
gladly kept their oaths enjoy a life
without tears, while the others undergo a
toil that is unbearable to look at. Those
who have persevered three times, on either
side, to keep their souls free from all
wrongdoing, follow
Zeus' road to the end, to the
tower of
Cronos, where ocean breezes blow
around the island of the blessed, and
flowers of gold are blazing, some from
splendid trees on land, while water
nurtures others. With these wreaths and
garlands of flowers they entwine their
hands according to the righteous counsels
of Rhadamanthys, whom the great father,
the husband of Rhea whose throne is above all
others, keeps close beside him as his
partner.
Peleus and
Cadmus are counted among them,
and
Achilles who was brought there by
his mother, when she had persuaded the
heart of
Zeus with her prayers—
Achilles, who laid low
Hector, the irresistible,
unswerving pillar of
Troy, and who consigned to
death
Memnon the Ethiopian, son of the
Dawn. I have many swift arrows
in the quiver under my arm, arrows that
speak to the initiated. But the masses
need interpreters. The man who knows a
great deal by nature is truly skillful,
while those who have only learned chatter
with raucous and indiscriminate tongues in
vain like crows."
The
DIOSCURI to
Theoclymenus 2, in Euripides, Helen
1676:
"And it is destined
by the gods that the wanderer
Menelaus will dwell in the islands
of the blessed ..."
Herodotus 3.26.1:
"So fared the
expedition against Ethiopia. As for those
who were sent to march against the
Ammonians, they set out and journeyed
from [Egyptian] Thebes with guides; and it
is known that they came to the city of
Oasis, inhabited by Samians said to be of
the Aeschrionian tribe, seven days' march
from Thebes across sandy desert; this
place is called, in the Greek language,
Islands of the Blest."
The above passage of Herodotus may be
compared with the following of Lycophron,
who says that "Islands of the Blest" were
a place near Boeotian Thebes, not in
Egyptian Thebes;
Cassandra
prophesies to her brother
Hector 1:
Lycophron, Alexandra
1204ff.:
"And in the Islands
of the Blest thou shalt dwell, a mighty
hero, defender of the arrows of
pestilence, where the sown folk
[that is, the
SPARTI] of Ogygus [see for
example Pau.9.5.1] ...[etc.] ... And the chiefs of the
Ectenes [subjects of Ogygus, that
is, Boeotians] shall
with libations celebrate thy glory in the
highest, even as the immortals."
Plato,
Gorgias
523a:
"Socrates: Give ear
then, as they say, to a right fine story,
which you will regard as a fable, I fancy,
but I as an actual account; for what I am
about to tell you I mean to offer as the
truth. By Homer's account,
Zeus,
Poseidon, and
Pluto divided the sovereignty
amongst them when they took it over from
their father. Now in the time of
Cronos there was a law
concerning mankind, and it holds to this
very day amongst the gods, that every man
who has passed a just and holy life
departs after his decease to the Isles of
the Blest, and dwells in all happiness
apart from ill; but whoever has lived
unjustly and impiously goes to the dungeon
of requital and penance which, you know,
they call Tartarus. Of these men there
were judges in
Cronos' time, and still of late
in the reign of
Zeus —living men to judge
the living upon the day when each was to
breathe his last; and thus the cases were
being decided amiss. So
Pluto and the overseers from
the Isles of the Blest came before
Zeus with the report that they
found men passing over to either abode
undeserving ..."
Plato,
Gorgias
526c:
"Sometimes, when he
discerns another soul that has lived a
holy life in company with truth, a private
man's or any others—especially, as I
claim, Callicles, a philosopher's who has
minded his own business and not been a
busybody in his lifetime—he is struck
with admiration and sends it off to the
Isles of the Blest. And exactly the same
is the procedure of
Aeacus: each of these two holds
a rod in his hand as he gives judgement;
but
Minos sits as supervisor,
distinguished by the golden scepter that
he holds, as
Odysseus in Homer tells how he saw
him—'Holding a golden scepter,
speaking dooms to the dead.'"
Plato,
Symposium
180b:
"This is the reason
why they honored
Achilles above
Alcestis, giving him his abode in
the Isles of the Blest."
Athenaeus,
Deipnosophistae
15.695:
"Dearest Harmodius,
thou art not dead, I ween, but they say
that thou art in the Islands of the Blest,
where swift-footed
Achilles lives, and, they say, the
brave son of
Tydeus,
Diomedes."
Flavius Philostratus, Life of
Apollonius 5.2:
" ... the Islands of
the Blest are to be fixed by the limits of
Libya where they rise towards the
uninhabited promontory."
Proteus 2 to
Menelaus.
Homer, Odyssey 4.561ff.:
"But for thyself,
Menelaus, fostered of
Zeus, it is not ordained that
thou shouldst die and meet thy fate in
horse-pasturing
Argos, but to the Elysian plain
and the bounds of the earth will the
immortals convey thee, where dwells
fair-haired Rhadamanthys, and where life
is easiest for men. No snow is there, nor
heavy storm, nor ever rain, but ever does
Ocean send up blasts of the shrill-blowing
West Wind that they may give cooling to
men; for thou hast
Helen to wife, and art in their
eyes the husband of the daughter of
Zeus."
Hera to Thetis.
Apollonius Rhodius, Argonautica
4.811:
"When thy son shall
come to the Elysian plain ... it is fated
that he be the husband of
Medea,
Aeetes' daughter ..."
Quintus Smyrnaeus, The Fall of
Troy 2.648:
"... and they
scatter dust
Down on his grave, still shrill the
battle-cry,
In memory of
Memnon, each to each.
But he in Hades' mansions, or
perchance
Amid the Blessed on the Elysian Plain
Laugheth ..."
Helen to
Polyxena 1.
Seneca, Troades 942:
" ... poor Polyxena,
whom
Achilles bids be given to him, and
be sacrificed in presence of his ashes,
that in the Elysian fields he may wed with
thee ..."
Aethiopis 1:
"The Achaeans ...
lay out the body of
Achilles, while Thetis, arriving
with the Muses and her sisters, bewails
her son, whom she afterwards catches away
from the pyre and transports to the White
Island."
Pausanias, Description of Greece
3.19.11:
"In the Euxine at
the mouths of the Ister is an island
sacred to
Achilles. It is called White
Island, and its circumference is twenty
stades. It is wooded throughout and
abounds in animals, wild and tame, while
on it is a temple of
Achilles with an image of
him."
Apollodorus, Epitome 5.5:
"The death of
Achilles filled the army with
dismay, and they buried him with
Patroclus in the White Isle, mixing
the bones of the two together. It is said
that after death
Achilles consorts with
Medea in the Isles of the
Blest." []
The White Isle mentioned above by
Apollodorus and Pausanias should be the
same that
Poseidon
promised Thetis that he would give
Achilles:
Quintus Smyrnaeus, The
Fall of Troy 3.770:
"Refrain from
endless mourning for thy son.
Not with the dead shall he abide, but
dwell
With Gods, as doth the might of
Heracles,
And Dionysus ever fair. Not him
Dread doom shall prison in darkness
evermore,
Nor Hades keep him. To the light of
Zeus
Soon shall he rise; and I will give to
him
A holy island for my gift: it lies
Within the Euxine Sea: there evermore
A God thy son shall be ..."
Yet
Neoptolemus
sees in a dream how the soul of his father
Achilles
leaves for the Elysian Plain:
Quintus Smyrnaeus, The
Fall of Troy 14.223:
"Then as a
wind-breath swift he
[Achilles] fleeted thence,
And came to the Elysian Plain, whereto
A path to heaven reacheth, for the
feet
Ascending and descending of the
Blest."
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