ELYOT, SIR THOMAS, a gentleman of eminent learning in the 16th century, was educated at Oxford, travelled into foreign countries, and upon his return was introduced to court. His learning recommended him to Henry VIII. who conferred the honour of knighthood on him, and employed him in several embassies: particularly in 1532, to Rome, about the divorce of Queen Catharine, and afterwards to Charles V. about 1536. He wrote, The Castle of Health, the Governor, Banquet of Sapience, Of the Education of Children, De rebus memorabilibus Angliæ, and other books; and was highly esteemed by all his learned contemporaries.
ELYSIUM (Ελυσίον), in the ancient theology, or rather mythology, a place in the inferi or lower world, furnished with fields, meads, agreeable woods, groves, shades, rivers, &c. whither the souls of good people were supposed to go after this life.
Orpheus, Hercules, and Æneas, were supposed to have
have descended into Elysiū in their life time, and to have returned again; (Virg. lib. vi. ver. 638, &c.) Tibullus (lib. i. eleg. 3.) gives us fine descriptions of the Elysiā fields.
Virgil opposes Elysiū to Tartarus; which was the place where the wicked underwent their punishment.
Hic locus est, partes ubi se via findit in ambas:
Dextera, quæ Ditis magni sub mania tendit:
Hac iter Elysiū nobis: at læva malorum
Exercet penas, et ad impia Tartara mittit.
He assigns Elysiū to those who died for their country, to those of pure lives, to truly inspired poets, to the inventors of arts, and to all who have done good to mankind.
Some authors take the fable of Elysiū to have been borrowed from the Phœnicians; as imagining the name Elysiū formed from the Phœnician alaz, or alat, or alat, "to rejoice," or "to be in joy;" the letter a being only changed into e, as we find done in many other names; as in Enakim for Anakim, &c. On which footing, Elysiā fields should signify the same thing as a place of pleasure; or,
Locos lactos, et amana vireta
Fortunatorum nemorum, sedesque beatas. VIRG.
Others derive the word from the Greek λυσσ, σέλω, "I deliver, I let loose or disengage;" because here men's souls are freed or disencumbered from the fetters of the body. Beroaldus, and Hornius (Hist. Philosoph. lib. iii. cap. 2.) take the place to have derived its name from Eliza, one of the first persons who came into Greece after the deluge, and the author and father of the Ætolians.
The Elysiā fields were, according to some, in the fortunate islands on the coast of Africa, in the Atlantic. Others place them in the island of Leuce; and, according to the authority of Virgil, they were situated in Italy. According to Lucian, they were near the moon; or in the centre of the earth, if we believe Plutarch. Olaus Wormius contends that it was in Sweden the Elysiā fields were placed.