Champs Elysées

See also: Fields, Elysium

In the Greek Mythology, the fields Élysées or simply the Elysium (in Greek old Ἠλύσιον πέδιον / Êlýsion pédion , of ἐνηλύσιον / enêlýsion , “place struck by the lightning”) are the place of the Enfers where the virtuous heroes and people taste the rest after their death.

At Homère, the Élysées fields are located at the Western end of the Earth, close to Océan. In the Odyssey , Protée thus describes them with Ménélas (IV, 563-568):

“The Immortal ones will take you along to fair Rhadamanthe,
With the Élyséens fields, which are all at the end of the terre.
It is there that the softest life is offered to the human ones;
Never snow neither great colds nor downpours either;
One feels everywhere only zephyrs of which the breezes sifflantes
Assemble Ocean to give freshness to the men. ”
(Transl. Frederic Mugler, 1995)

At the time of Hésiode, the Élysées fields become the Îles of the Happy, described by Pindare.

In Christian mythology, the Champs Elysées are located in hell and accommodate the heroes and poets who lived before the arrival of Christ. Thus in the poem of Dante, the Divine comedy, the Fields-Elysées constitute the first circle of the hell and gather the Old ones, that wise Aristote chairs.

See too

the Islands of the Happy
the White Island
the Fields of Ialou of the beliefs ancient Egyptian women

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