Greek Texts & Translations

4

He portrays the happiness of the people of the West, and the salubrity of their climate, having no doubt heard of the abundance of Iberia, ^note which had attracted the arms of Hercules, ^note afterwards of the Phoenicians, who acquired there an extended rule, and finally of the Romans. There the airs of Zephyr breathe, there the poet feigned the fields of Elysium, when he tells us Menelaus was sent thither by the gods:— Thee the gods
Have destined to the blest Elysian isles,
Earth's utmost boundaries. Rhadamanthus there
For ever reigns, and there the human kind
Enjoy the easiest life; no snow is there,
No biting winter, and no drenching shower,
But Zephyr always gently from the sea
Breathes on them, to refresh the happy race. ^note
Odyssey iv. 563 5

The Isles of the Blest ^note are on the extreme west of Maurusia, ^note near where its shore runs parallel to the opposite coast of Spain; and it is clear he considered these regions also Blest, from their contiguity to the Islands. 6

He tells us also, that the Ethiopians are far removed, and bounded by the ocean: far removed,— The Ethiopians, utmost of mankind,
These eastward situate, those toward the west. ^note
Odyssey i. 23