الجزر المحظوظة
الجزر المحظوظة Fortunate Isles أوجزر المحظوظين Isles of the Blessed (باليونانية: μακάρων νῆσοι, makárōn nêsoi) were semi-legendary islands in the Atlantic Ocean, variously treated as a simple geographical location and as a winterless earthly paradise inhabited by the heroes of Greek mythology. The related idea of Brasil and other islands in Celtic mythology are sometimes conflated with the Greek sense of islands in the western Mediterranean: Sicily, the Aeolian Islands, the Aegadian Islands or other smaller islands of Sicily. Later on the islands were said to lie in the Western Ocean near the encircling River Oceanus; Madeira, the Canary Islands, the Azores, Cape Verde, Bermuda, and the Lesser Antilles have sometimes been cited as possible matches.
الأسطورة
According to Greek mythology, the islands were reserved for those who had chosen to be reincarnated three times, and managed to be judged as especially pure enough to gain entrance to the Elysian Fields all three times. A feature of the fortunate islands is the connection with the god Cronus; the cult of Cronus had spread and connected to Sicily, in particular in the area near Agrigento where it was revered and in some areas associated with the cult of the Phoenician god Baal.[]
الروايات المأثورة
Flavius Philostratus' Life of Apollonius of Tyana (v.2) says, "And they also say that the Islands of the Blessed are to be fixed by the limits of Libya where they rise towards the uninhabited promontory." In this geography Libya was considered to extend westwards through Mauretania "as far as the mouth of the river Salex, some nine hundred stadia, and beyond that point a further distance which no one can compute, because when you have passed this river Libya is a desert which no longer supports a population".
Plutarch, who refers to the "fortunate isles" several times in his writings, locates them firmly in the Atlantic in his vita of Sertorius. Sertorius, when struggling against a chaotic civil war in the closing years of the Roman Republic, had tidings from mariners of certain islands a few days' sail from Hispania:
...where the air was never extreme, which for rain had a little silver dew, which of itself and without labour, bore all pleasant fruits to their happy dwellers, till it seemed to him that these could be no other than the Fortunate Islands, the Elysian Fields.
It was from these men that Sertorius learned facts so beguiling that he made it his life's ambition to find the islands and retire there. {{quotation|The islands are said to be two in number separated by a very narrow strait and lie 10,000 furlongs ( 2,000 kilometers / 1,250 miles ) from Africa. They are called the Isles of the Blessed. [...]
انظر أيضاً
- Greek mythology in popular culture
- Hesperides
- Snake Island (Black Sea), "Isle of the Blessed" in Greek legend.
- Annwn
- Brittia
- Elysium
- Mag Mell
- Tír na nÓg, the Isle of the Ever-Young
- Avalon, the Isle of the Blessed
- Aman, the "blessed realm" of Tolkien's works.
- Buyan
- Macaronesia
- Vinland
- Great Ireland
- Saint Brendan's Island
ملاحظات
- ^ AncientHistoryMaps (1697), Cartes et Tables de la Geographie Ancienne - Sanson, https://archive.org/details/CartesEtTablesDeLaGeographieAncienne-Sanson, retrieved on 2018-03-17
- ^ Sanson, Nicolas (1697). "Cartes et Tables de la Geographie Ancienne - Sanson". Archived from the original on 2016-04-01. Retrieved 2018-03-17.
- ^ Pindar, Olympian Ode 2. 57 ff
- ^ Plutarch, Life of Sertorius, ch. viii.
