Note 15 — Chapter II · ISLANDS OF THE BLEST TRANSLATION

Among innumerable unsuccessful attempts made by the ancients at finding an etymological derivation for the word Ἠλύσιον (Sch., δ 563, Eust., p. 1509, Hesych., s.v., etc., also Cels. ap. Orig., Cels. vii, 28, p. 53 L.) occurs also the right one, E.M., 428, 36: παρὰ τὴν ἔλευσιν, ἔνθα οἱ εὐσεβεῖς παραγίνονται. The grammarians seem to have disputed over the question, did Menelaos live for ever in Elysion? It was agreed on all hands that he reached that abode alive, without separation of psyche from body; but the over-subtle thought that the prophecy meant that he too should die there though not in Argos—not that he should never die at all: so esp. E. Gud., 242, 2 ff. This was the opinion also of those who derived Ἠλύσιον from the fact that there the ψυχαὶ λελυμέναι τῶν σωμάτων διάγουσι: Eust., 1509, 29, E.M., etc. The etymology is as bad as the interpretation of the line. The line remained, however, throughout antiquity as a curiosity; intelligent readers understood the prophecy quite rightly as referring to the translation of Menelaos to everlasting life without separation of ψυχή from body; e.g. Porph. ap. Stob., Ecl. i, p. 422, 8 ff., W. So, too, those who gave the right interpretation of fact, but rested it upon the more dubious etymology: Ἠλύσιον οὐλύσιον, ὅτι οὐ διαλύονται ἀπὸ τῶν σωμάτων αἱ ψυχαί. Hesych. (cf. E.M., 428, 34–5; Sch., δ 563; Procl. on Hes., Op., 169).