DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.811#0194
MINOAN ABODE OF BLISS 155
also be compared in a broader aspect with the dragon—the loathly
Nidhoggr—at the foot of Yggdrasil.
The entire composition of the designs on this remarkable signet-ring First
moves forward in a single story.1 This, as has been shown, is divided into into°
four successive episodes—the Goddess seated in front of her companion ^™°^n
and with the tokens of her life-giving powers, the butterflies and chrysalises to'.ogy.
above her head ; next, the reunited couple ; then the lion-guardian, tended
by the handmaidens of the divinity, and finally 'the Griffin's Court', repre-
senting a ceremony of initiation. It gives us our first real insight into
the pre-Hellenic eschatology, and is the only glimpse that we possess of the
World Beyond as conceived by the Minoans.
There is no gloom about the picture; the human figures are not mere A true
shadows or half-skeletons, but real flesh and blood and moved by very notS1°
human emotions. Surprise, joy, affection, and encouragement are alternately Hailes-
suggested, and we see the advancing pair caught, as it were, with the spirit
of the dance, as if unseen music filled the background. The Goddess and
her handmaidens and the ministering griffin-ladies show the same vivacity
of gesture language, with truly dramatic touches in the action displayed.
All alike wear fashionable raiment, reflecting indeed the latest modes, and
the imagination is left free to fill in the bright colouring. We have not here
the Hades of primitive Greek tradition—the gloomy Under-World of pale
shadows and gibbering ghosts. This is the true Elysion, un-Hellenic in its
conception, and ruled by the Cretan Rhadamanthys,2 brother of Minos, such
as was the promised land held out by Proteus to Menelaos in the well-known
passage of the Odyssey. It is not in Argos that he shall meet his fate;
the deathless gods shall convey him ' to the Elysian Plain and the World's
End, where is Rhadamanthys of the fair hair,3 where life is easiest for men.
No snow is there nor yet great storms nor any rain ; but always Ocean
sendeth forth the breeze of the shrill West.' Here, too, he shall rejoin his
1 The following paragraphs are substan- truly describes it (pp. cit., p. 549)—of the gold
tially reproduced from my Ring of Nestor, 6fc, ring supplies a curiously apt commentary on
pp. 70-2. the view that Elysion represents the Minoan
2 The un-Greek character of Elysion and idea of Paradise. That there was a certain
its connexion with the Minoan element of assimilation with the Egyptian ' Islands of
Hellas has been well brought out by Dr. the Blest' is also very probable. Proteus,
Ludolf Malten {Jahrb. d. k. Deutschen Arch, indeed, at once brings us into a Nilotic
Inst., xxviii (1913), p. 35 seqq.; Elysion und relation.
Rhadamanthys'). His views are adopted and 3 Od. iv. 563 :
developed by Prof. Martin Nilsson {pp. cit., aXKa. <r es 'WXiaUw weSCov ml Trupara yatrjs
539 seqq.). The ' amazing find '—as Nilsson aOdvaroi 7re/x<i«>ijo-ii', 061 £av8os 'PaSa/tai'tfos.
also be compared in a broader aspect with the dragon—the loathly
Nidhoggr—at the foot of Yggdrasil.
The entire composition of the designs on this remarkable signet-ring First
moves forward in a single story.1 This, as has been shown, is divided into into°
four successive episodes—the Goddess seated in front of her companion ^™°^n
and with the tokens of her life-giving powers, the butterflies and chrysalises to'.ogy.
above her head ; next, the reunited couple ; then the lion-guardian, tended
by the handmaidens of the divinity, and finally 'the Griffin's Court', repre-
senting a ceremony of initiation. It gives us our first real insight into
the pre-Hellenic eschatology, and is the only glimpse that we possess of the
World Beyond as conceived by the Minoans.
There is no gloom about the picture; the human figures are not mere A true
shadows or half-skeletons, but real flesh and blood and moved by very notS1°
human emotions. Surprise, joy, affection, and encouragement are alternately Hailes-
suggested, and we see the advancing pair caught, as it were, with the spirit
of the dance, as if unseen music filled the background. The Goddess and
her handmaidens and the ministering griffin-ladies show the same vivacity
of gesture language, with truly dramatic touches in the action displayed.
All alike wear fashionable raiment, reflecting indeed the latest modes, and
the imagination is left free to fill in the bright colouring. We have not here
the Hades of primitive Greek tradition—the gloomy Under-World of pale
shadows and gibbering ghosts. This is the true Elysion, un-Hellenic in its
conception, and ruled by the Cretan Rhadamanthys,2 brother of Minos, such
as was the promised land held out by Proteus to Menelaos in the well-known
passage of the Odyssey. It is not in Argos that he shall meet his fate;
the deathless gods shall convey him ' to the Elysian Plain and the World's
End, where is Rhadamanthys of the fair hair,3 where life is easiest for men.
No snow is there nor yet great storms nor any rain ; but always Ocean
sendeth forth the breeze of the shrill West.' Here, too, he shall rejoin his
1 The following paragraphs are substan- truly describes it (pp. cit., p. 549)—of the gold
tially reproduced from my Ring of Nestor, 6fc, ring supplies a curiously apt commentary on
pp. 70-2. the view that Elysion represents the Minoan
2 The un-Greek character of Elysion and idea of Paradise. That there was a certain
its connexion with the Minoan element of assimilation with the Egyptian ' Islands of
Hellas has been well brought out by Dr. the Blest' is also very probable. Proteus,
Ludolf Malten {Jahrb. d. k. Deutschen Arch, indeed, at once brings us into a Nilotic
Inst., xxviii (1913), p. 35 seqq.; Elysion und relation.
Rhadamanthys'). His views are adopted and 3 Od. iv. 563 :
developed by Prof. Martin Nilsson {pp. cit., aXKa. <r es 'WXiaUw weSCov ml Trupara yatrjs
539 seqq.). The ' amazing find '—as Nilsson aOdvaroi 7re/x<i«>ijo-ii', 061 £av8os 'PaSa/tai'tfos.