Note 11 — Chapter I

We speak with some degree of doubt, both from the fluctuating notions of the Greeks upon this head, and from imperfect acquaintance with their opinions. The unhesitating belief of the Celtic nations in a happy immortality was known even in the time of Lucan, and is celebrated by him in a fine and well–known passage. The immortality of Homer’s heroes was mournful and discontented. “Talk not to me of death,” says Achilles (Od. xi. 487), “I would rather be the hired servant of some needy man, whose means of life are scanty, than rule over the whole of the deceased.” Other passages to the same effect are collected at the beginning of the third book of the Republic, by Plato, who objects seriously to their effect as making death an object of terror. Yet, in another passage, Homer speaks of the “Elysian plain, and the ends of the earth, where man’s life is easiest, where there is no snow, nor rain, nor winter, but thither ocean ever wafts the clear–toned gales of the west to refresh men.” (Od. iv. 565.) Hesiod, on the other hand (Works and Days, v. 166), and, some centuries after, Pindar (Ol. ii.), speak of a future life as perfectly happy, describing it in terms closely similar to those of the last quotation from Homer. All these writers appear to place their happiness in perfect rest: the blessed are no longer compelled to till the earth, or navigate the ocean; they lead a careless life; there is no reference to sensual pleasures, except that the earth produces fruits spontaneously thrice a year, nor even to their continuing to take delight in arms or in the chace. In later authors they are described as retaining the habits and pleasures of life: see the note on the scholium of Callistratus, chap. v.; Ov. Met. iv. 444; and more especially the passage in Virgil, vi. 651, which, but for wanting the personal superintendence of Odin, bears much resemblance to a refined Valhalla.