In Greek mythology, Elysium 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 passages in Homer 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 Odyssey. Greek traditions concerning funerary ritual were reticent, but the Homeric examples encouraged other heroic visits, in the myth cycles accreted upon Theseus and upon Heracles (Campbell 1948; Ruck and Staples 1994).

The Elysian Fields lay on the western margin of the earth, by the encircling stream of Oceanus (Odyssey), and there the mortal relatives of the king of the gods were transported, without tasting death, to enjoy an immortality of bliss (Odyssey book iv: 563). Hesiod refers to the Isles of the Blessed (makarôn nêsoi) in the Western Ocean (Works and Days). Pindar makes

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").

Elysium in Literature

Among the poets to interpret Elysium is Virgil, who describes an encounter there 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 book vi:541).

Elysium was a pagan expression that passed into the usage of the Christian patristic writers, simply a synonym for paradise.

Dante had a very different idea of the Elysian Fields - he described them 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

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 Die Zaberflōte (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.

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 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

• Paradise (Persian and judeo-christian)
• Reed fields (Egypt)
• Tartarus (Greek hell)
• Jannah (Islamic name for paradise)

References

• 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: "The Liminal Hero"

Elysium Elysion Elysion Champs Élysées שדות אליסיום Elízium Elyzeese velden エリュシオン Elizjum Campos Elísios Elysion Elyséiska fälten