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Elysium or the Elysian Fields (, ''Ēlýsion pedíon'') is a conception of the afterlife that developed over time and was maintained by certain Greek religious and philosophical sects and cults. Initially separate from the realm of Hades, admission was reserved for mortals related to the gods and other heroes. Later, it expanded to include those chosen by the gods, the righteous, and the heroic, where they would remain after death, to live a blessed and happy life, and indulging in whatever employment they had enjoyed in life. The Elysian Fields were, according to Homer, located on the western edge of the Earth by the stream of Okeanos.〔 In the time of the Greek oral poet Hesiod, Elysium would also be known as the ''Fortunate Isles'' or the ''Isles (or Islands) of the Blessed'', located in the western ocean at the end of the earth.〔 The Isles of the Blessed would be reduced to a single island by the Thebean poet Pindar, describing it as having shady parks, with residents indulging their athletic and musical pastimes.〔〔 The ruler of Elysium varies from author to author: Pindar and Hesiod name Cronus as the ruler, while the poet Homer in the ''Odyssey'' describes fair-haired Rhadamanthus dwelling there.〔〔 ==Classical literature== In Homer’s ''Odyssey'', Elysium is described as a paradise: According to Eustathius of Thessalonica〔''Commentarii ad Homerii Odisseam'', (IV, v. 563 ).〕 the word "Elysium" (Ἠλύσιον) derives from ἀλυουσας (ἀλύω, to be deeply stirred from joy)〔Henry George Liddell. Robert Scott. ''A Greek-English Lexicon''. revised and augmented throughout by. Sir Henry Stuart Jones. with the assistance of. Roderick McKenzie. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1940. (sub voce ).〕 or from ἀλύτως, synonymous of ἀφθάρτως (ἄφθαρτος, incorruptible),〔''A Greek-English Lexicon'' ec. (s. v. )〕 referring to souls' life in this place. Another suggestion is from ελυθ-, ἔρχομαι (to come).〔''Storia vera. Dialoghi dei morti'', Lucian, Oscar Mondadori, Milano, 1991 (2010), p. 79.〕 The Greek oral poet Hesiod refers to the Isles of the Blessed in his didactic poem ''Works and Days''. In his book ''Greek Religion'', Walter Burkert notes the connection with the motif of far-off Dilmun: "Thus Achilles is transported to the White Isle, which may refer to Mount Teide on Tenerife, whose volcano is often snowcapped and as the island was sometimes called the white isle by explorers, and becomes the Ruler of the Black Sea, and Diomedes becomes the divine lord of an Adriatic island".〔 Pindar's ''Odes'' describes the reward waiting for those living a righteous life: In Virgil's ''Aeneid'', Aeneas, like Heracles and Odysseus before him, travels to the underworld. Virgil describes those who will travel to Elysium, and those who will travel to Tartarus: Virgil goes on to describe 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''. In the Greek historian Plutarch's, ''Life of Sertorius'', Elysium is described as: Diodorus, in his first book, suggested that the Elysian fields which were much celebrated by Grecian poetry, corresponded to the beautiful plains in the neighborhood of Memphis which contained the tombs of that capital city of Egypt.〔Seymer, John Gunning. (1835) (The Romance of Ancient Egypt: Second Series ). p 72.〕〔Priestley, Joseph. (Disquisitions on Matter and Spirit ). p. 209〕 He further intimated that the Greek prophet Orpheus composed his fables about the afterlife when he traveled to Egypt and saw the customs of the Egyptians regarding the rites of the dead.〔Toland, John. (Letters to Serena ), History of the Immortality of the Soul. pp. 46–52〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Elysium」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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