ELYSIUM, the place which, according to the ancient poets, the souls of the blessed inhabited. By Homer it was placed in the vicinity of Oceanus, and on the extreme confines of the earth. Here Nature produced her most delicious fruits without assistance from the hand of man. No winter storm ever obscured the brilliancy of the atmosphere; but cooling zephyrs refreshed the air, and wafted on their wings the most delightful perfumes. Admission into this realm of pleasure and repose was a favour which could only be purchased by an irreproachable life, or by brilliant exploits. The souls of the dead had to appear before the awful tribunal of the infernal judges, Aeacus, Minos, and Rhadamanthus, who decided without appeal upon their claims, and either allowed them to pass into Elysium or condemned them to the torments of Tartarus. This part of the myth has evidently allusion to an Egyptian custom, according to which one could only obtain the right of burial in certain privileged cemeteries after undergoing a severe scrutiny of his life and conduct. It is curious to observe the various changes of position in respect to the Elysian Fields, as a more intimate acquaintance with geography successively dispelled the erroneous impressions derived from the foolish statements of travellers. The Greeks in the earlier ages placed them in the district of Thesprotia, where they also found the Acheron, Cocytus, and Avernus; and it was to this elysium that Homer tells us Mercury conducted the souls of the suitors of Penelope, after they had been slain by Ulysses. But they afterwards transported the Elysian Fields and Avernus to the vicinity of Baiae in Campania.
Largior hic campos aether et lumine vestit
Purpureo; solemque suum, sua sidera norunt.
It was not till later times that these imaginary abodes were fixed at the extremity of Iberia, where they found the Lethe, "that slow and silent stream, the river of oblivion," now called Guadalete, as well as another of the same name in Lusitania.
ELYTRA (ἄλτρον), in Entomology, the wing-sheaths or thick upper membranes which form the superior wings
of the beetle tribe. They serve to protect the true membranous wing.