“I come from a land in the sun bright deep,
Where golden gardens glow,
Where the winds of the north, becalmed in sleep,
Their conch-shells never blow.”
On the south side of the earth, close to that fancied stream, or “River Ocean,” dwelt a people happy and virtuous as the Hyperboreans. They were named Æthiopians. The gods favored them highly, and at times left their Olympian abodes, going down to share their sacrifices and banquets.
On the western margin of the earth, fast by the “River Ocean,” spread out a beautiful plain named Elysiam, whither mortals, favored by the gods, were transported without tasting death, to enjoy an immortality of bliss. This happy region was also called by them “Fortunate Fields,” and “Isles of the Blessed.”
It will be borne in mind by the young reader of their fables, or legends, that the Greeks of the mythological period were an isolated people, knowing but little of geography, and nothing of any real people except those to the east and south of their own country, or near the coast of the Mediterranean.
The western portion of this sea, of unknown extent, their imagination peopled with giants and enchantresses, while around them, at unknown distances, and perhaps but remotely connected with their own earthly habitation, they placed communities enjoying the peculiar favor of the gods, having serene happiness and longevity—human, but akin to the immortals.
Of the heavens above them still less was yet known, though they studied astronomy, and noted how some bodies moved, while others were apparently stationary.
Probably they had some vague notion of life and volition in things that move, and when the sun and moon were said to rise from the ocean and drive through the air, giving light to gods and men, the language was, to them, scarcely metaphorical.