Note 5 — Early Poems (continued 3)

The Happy Isles, the Fortunatæ Insulæ of the Romans and the αἱ τῶν Μακάρων νῆσοι of the Greeks, have been identified by geographers as those islands in the Atlantic off the west coast of Africa; some take them to mean the Canary Islands, the Madeira group and the Azores, while they may have included the Cape de Verde Islands as well. What seems certain is that these places with their soft delicious climate and lovely scenery gave the poets an idea of a happy abode for departed spirits, and so the conception of the Elysian Fields. The loci classici on these abodes are Homer, Odyssey, iv., 563 seqq.:—