design. No call for reward of human righteousness occasions them, nor do they belong to a system of which hell is an integral part. The closeness of the analogy is scarcely lessened by the amorous complexion of Hellenic and Celtic paradisaical bliss; for it is only in keeping with Chinese literary tradition to omit any mention of the physical manifestation of love. Not that legend in China is altogether lacking in island abodes of superhuman females who are fain to receive the embraces of mortal lovers;[1] yet, so far as I know, such a notion has never entered into the Isles of the Blest conception.[2]
In the Homeric poems the joys of an everlasting earthly paradise are reserved for the few, who are heroes of divine descent specially favoured by the gods or the chosen mates of amorous goddesses.[3] Immortality is conferred upon them by the eating of ambrosia, by the drinking of nectar, or simply by divine caprice.
The Elysian plain prophesied to Menelaus[4] is a poetical creation unrelated to any actual locality such as Strabo assigns it.[5] Like all earthly paradise conceptions, its essence lies in its remoteness from human ken. Hesiod, robbing it of none of its mystery, places the happy land in the ocean, and he first uses the name "Isles of the Blest," (
Greek characters).[6]
In Pindar the delights of the overseas Elysium are told in similar terms,[7] but the idea has lost its archaic simplicity. It becomes religious. Admission is gained only through death and subsequent lives of merit lived upon earth. At
- ↑ Schlegel, T‘oung Pao, vi. p. 247 seq.
- ↑ It is, however, known to Taoism. In one of the biographies of the Lieh hsien chuan of Liu Hsiang a female hsien figures in much the same role as a priestess of Astarte.
- ↑ e.g. Calypso, Od. v.
- ↑ Od. iv.
- ↑ Geog. Bk. i. cp. i. § 4, 5: Bk. iii. cp. ii. § 13.
- ↑ Works and Days, lines 167 seq.
- ↑ 2nd Ol. Ode.
