Such ideas took strong hold on classic thought, in the belief in a paradise in the Fortunate Islands of the far Western Ocean. Hesiod in the 'Works and Days' tells of the half-gods of the Fourth Age, between the Age of Bronze and the Age of Iron. When death closed on this heroic race, Zeus granted them at the ends of Earth a life and home, apart from man and far from the immortals. There Kronos reigns over them, and they dwell careless in the Islands of the Happy, beside deep-eddying Ocean—blest heroes, for whom the grain-giving field bears, thrice blooming yearly, the honey-sweet fruit:—
‘Ἔνθ’ ἤτοι τοὺς μὲν θανάτου τέλος ἀμφεκάλυψε·
Τοῖς δὲ δίχ’ ἀνθρώπων βίοτον καὶ ἠθἐ ὀπάσσας
Ζεὺς κρονίδης κατένασσε πατὴρ ἐς πείρατα γαίης,
Τηλοῦ ἀπ’ ἀθανάτων· τοῖσιν Κρόνος ἐμβασιλεύει·
Καὶ τοὶ μὲν ναίουσιν ἀκηδέα θυμὸν ἔχοντες
Ἐν μακάρων νήσοισον παρ’ Ὠκεανὸν βαθυδίνην,
Ὄλβιοι ἥρωες, τοῖσιν μελιηδέα καρπὸν
Τρὶς ἔτεος θάλλοντα φέρει ζείδωρος ἄρουρα.’[1]
These Islands of the Blest, assigned as the abode of blessed spirits of the dead, came indeed to be identified with the Elysian Fields. Thus Pindar sings of steadfast souls, who through three lives on either side have endured free from injustice; then they pass by the road of Zeus to the tower of Kronos, where the ocean breezes blow round the islands of the happy, blazing with golden flowers of land and water. Thus, also, in the famous hymn of Kallistratos in honour of Harmodios and Aristogeiton, who slew the tyrant Hipparchos:—
‘Φίλταθ’ Ἁρμόδἰ, οὔ τι πω τέθνηκας
Νήσοις δ’ ἐν μακάρων σε φασὶν εἶναι,
Ἵνα περ ποδώκης ’Αχιλλεύς,
Τυδείδην τε φασὶ τὸν ἐσθλὸν Διομήδεα.’[1]
This group of legends has especial interest to us Englishmen, who ourselves dwell, it seems, on such an island of the
