Asphodel Meadows
section of the Underworld in ancient Greek mythology
In Greek mythology, the Asphodel Meadows or Asphodel Fields (Ancient Greek: ἀσφοδελὸς λειμών, romanized: asphodelòs leimṓn) are a section of the ancient Greek underworld where most ordinary souls are sent to live after death. They are one of the three main divisions of the underworld along with Elysium, where righteous souls are rewarded, and Tartarus, where vicious souls are punished. In his Odyssey, Homer locates the Fields of Asphodel close to the Land of dreams. He further refers to them as the dwelling place of the spirits of men who have abandoned their earthly labors.
Name
The name of the land, inspired by the plant Asphodelus, appears in the literature as far back as Homer's Odyssey, where it features in Odysseus' survey of the underworld. Many ancient Greek poets and Homeric commentators understand the adjective asphodelòs to mean "flowery", "fragrant", or "fertile". According to others, the unattractive plant was chosen by the Greeks because of its ghostly gray colour which is appropriate to the shadowy atmosphere of the underworld.
A different proposal explains the name of the land as "field of ashes", basing it on sphodelos or spodelos, an alternative version of the name that could be related to "σποδός", spodós ("ashes", "embers").
Later depictions
The Asphodel Meadows are most probably where the souls of people who lived mediocre lives remain. Their relationship to other places in the Greek afterlife remains uncertain.
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This entry incorporates text from “Asphodel Meadows” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.