Golden age
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- This article is about mythological Golden age(s). For other uses of "Golden Age" see The Golden Age.
The term Golden age stems from Greek mythology and Roman poets. It refers to the highest age in the Greek spectrum of Iron, Bronze, Silver and Golden ages, or to a time in the beginnings of Humanity which was perceived as an ideal state, or utopia, when humankind was pure and immortal. In literary works, the Golden Age usually ends with a devastating event, which brings about the Fall of Man (see Ages of Man). An analogous idea can be found in the religious and philosophical traditions of the Far East. For example, the Vedic or ancient Hindu culture saw history as cyclical composed of yugas with alternating Dark and Golden ages. The Kali yuga (Iron Age), Dwapara yuga (Bronze Age), Treta yuga (Silver age) and Satya yuga (Golden age) correspond to the four Greek ages. Similar beliefs can be found in the ancient Middle East and throughout the ancient world.
According to Giorgio de Santillana, the former professor of history at MIT, and co-author of the book Hamlet's Mill[1], there are over 200 myth and folkstories from over 30 ancient cultures that spoke of a cycle of the ages tied to the movement of the heavens. Some Utopianist beliefs, both political and religious, hold that the Golden Age will return after a period of blessedness and gradual decadence is completed. Other proponents, including many modern day Hindus, believe a Golden age will gradually return as a natural consequence of the changing yugas.
Some pastoral works of fiction depict life in an imaginary Arcadia as being a continuation of life in the Golden Age; the shepherds of such a land have not allowed themselves to be corrupted into civilization.[2]
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[edit] History
Both in Europe as well as in the Middle East, the idea of a Golden Age is part of a mythical interpretation of history, which divides history into several consequent ages, or (predominantly in the Middle East) into empires or historical epochs. The Golden Age (in India the Satya Yuga) is perceived to have been the first and best age, followed by the Silver Age and so on. The lowest and worst age was the Kali yuga of the Dark Ages when the decay of civilisation reached its nadir, prior to the renaissance period and the present Dwapara yuga. This perception of history is different from the current linear paradigm which does recognize any cyclicality. The theory of historical ages is often thought to be the mythical expression of a philosophy of history marked by cultural pessimism, or simply the belief of primitive cultures. A few modern theorists such as Walter Cruttenden, author of Lost Star of Myth and Time, believe the cycle of the ages has a basis in fact indirectly due to the motion of the solar system around another star.
[edit] Greek and Roman antiquity
A myth of ages can be seen in Europe in the writings of Hesiod in the late 8th and early 7th century BC.
The Greek poet Hesiod, around the 8th century BC, in his compilation of the mythological tradition (the poem Works and Days), explained that, prior to the present era, there were other four progressively most perfect ones, the oldest of which was called the Golden age. In this stage:
[...] they lived like gods without sorrow of heart, remote and free from toil and grief: miserable age rested not on them; but with legs and arms never failing they made merry with feasting beyond the reach of all evils. When they died, it was as though they were overcome with sleep, and they had all good things; for the fruitful earth unforced bare them fruit abundantly and without stint. They dwelt in ease and peace upon their lands with many good things, rich in flocks and loved by the blessed gods.
In this age, Hesiod writes, humankind lived in absolute peace, carefree like the gods because they never aged and death was a falling asleep. The main characteristic of this age according to Hesiod was that the earth produced food in abundance, so that agriculture was rendered superfluous. This characteristic also defines almost all later versions of the myth.
The Orphic school, a religious movement from Thrace which spread to Greece in the 6th century BC, held similar beliefs, including the denomination of the ages with metals. Some Orphics identified the Golden Age with the era of the god Phanes, who was regent over the Olympus before Cronus. In classical mythology however, the Golden Age took place during the reign of Cronus. In the 5th century BC, the philosopher Empedocles emphasised the idea of original peacefulness, innocence and harmony in all of nature, including human society.
Several centuries later (29 BC) the Golden Age was depicted in Virgil's The Georgics. Here, the poet looked back again to sing the good old times before Jupiter, when:
Fields knew no taming hand of husbandmen;
To mark the plain or mete with boundary-line-
Even this was impious; for the common stock
They gathered, and the earth of her own will
All things more freely, no man bidding, bore.
The topic is taken up again by Ovid's in his Metamorphoses (AD 8):
The golden age was first; when Man yet new,
No rule but uncorrupted reason knew:
And, with a native bent, did good pursue.
Unforc'd by punishment, un-aw'd by fear, [...]
Peace and harmony prevailed during this age. Humans did not grow old, but died peacefully. Spring was eternal and people were fed on acorns from a great oak as well as wild fruits and honey that dripped from the trees. The spirits of those men who died were known as Daimones and were guides for the later ancient Greeks (who considered themselves to live in the later Iron Age.)
This race eventually died out when Prometheus (a Titan) gave the secret of fire to humans. Zeus punished humans, allowing Pandora to open her box which unleashed all evil in the mortal world.
Within sequences or cycles of eras, the golden age stands alongside the silver age and the Iron Age, and conditions can improve or decline according to one's conception of mythic progression.
Also Plutarch, the Greek historian and biographer of the 1st century, dealt with the blissful and mythic past of the humanity.
[edit] Norse
The Old Norse word gullaldr (literally "Golden Age") was used in Völuspá to describe the period after Ragnarök where the surviving gods and their progeny build the city Gimlé on the ruins of Asgard.
[edit] Hindu
The Indian teachings differentiate the four world ages (Yugas) not according to metals, but according to colors, whereby the white color belongs to the first, ideal age. These colors were originally assigned to the planet Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury and Mars just like the metals. After the world fall at the end of the fourth, worst age (the Kali yuga) the cycle should be continued, eventually culminating in a new golden age.
The Krita Yuga also known as the Satya yuga, the First and Perfect Age, as described in the Mahabharata, a Hindu epic:
[...] Men neither bought nor sold; there were no poor and no rich; there was no need to labour, because all that men required was obtained by the power of will; the chief virtue was the abandonment of all worldly desires. The Krita Yuga was without disease; there was no lessening with the years; there was no hatred or vanity, or evil thought whatsoever; no sorrow, no fear. All mankind could attain to supreme blessedness. [...]
Amongst the four eras, the Satya Yuga is the first and the most significant one. This era extends up to 1,728,000 years. Knowledge, meditation, and penance hold special importance in this era. All the pillars of religion are present in totality. The average life expectancy of a human being in Satya Yuga is believed to be over 4,000 years. During Satya Yuga, all people engage only in good, sublime deeds. Ashrams become devoid of wickedness and deceit. Natyam (such as Bharatanatyam), according to Natya Shastra, did not exist in the Satya Yuga "because it was the time when all people were happy".
[edit] Christianity
According to Tom Whyte and John Ashton's The Quest for Paradise, the Golden Age idea contributed to the modern Christian views of Heaven.
The Golden Age is identified with Eden. It is considered to return during the reign of Christ which will never end. See also millennialism. The church father Lactantius availed himself with his description "golden age" of the future thousand-year old of Christ's Kingdom including the usual characteristics (blessedness of entire nature, sumptuous fertility, animal peace, disappearing agriculture and navigation).
Book of Isaiah ch. 65, which somehow is reminisce of the mythological Golden Age descriptions, is believed to refer to that state.
17 For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.
18 But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy.
19 And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying.
20 There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old; but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed.
21 And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.
22 They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat: for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.
23 They shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth for trouble; for they are the seed of the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring with them.
24 And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.
25 The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like the bullock: and dust shall be the serpent's meat. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain, saith the LORD.– Book of Isaiah
Another connection made by early Christians and Jews was that this was a reference to the Nephilim spoken of in the book of Genesis, as referenced from the Book of Enoch, a pseudopigraphal work. The book of Enoch is quoted in Jude 14, 15.
[edit] Early modern Europe
In early modern Europe, some called the Enlightenment a second Golden Age (the first assumed to be that of the ancient authors Homer, Aristophanes, Virgil and especially Horace); in England, the Augustan Age and the 18th century were then considered a Golden Age for the progress made in thought (David Hume), science (Royal Society), and literature (Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Alexander Pope).
[edit] Fantasy
In modern fantasy worlds whose background and setting sometime draw heavily on real-world myths, similar or compatible concepts of Golden Age exist in the said world's prehistory; when Deities or Elf-like creatures existed, before the coming of humans.
For example, a Golden Age exists in Middle-earth legendarium. Arda (the period of our world where The Lord of the Rings is set), was designed to be symmetrical and perfect. After the wars of the Gods, Arda lost its perfect shape (known as Arda Unmarred) and was called Arda Marred. Another kind of 'Golden Age' follows later, after the Elves awoke; the Eldar stay on Valinor, live with the Valar and advance in arts and knowledge, until the rebellion and the fall of the Noldor, reminiscent of the Fall of Man. Eventually, after the end of the world, the Silmarilli will be recovered and the light of the Two Trees of Valinor rekindled. Arda will be remade again as Arda Healed.
In The Wheel of Time universe, the Age of Legends is the name given to the previous Age: In this society, channelers were common and Aes Sedai - trained channelers - were extremely powerful, able to make angreal, sa'angreal, and ter'angreal, and holding important civic positions. The Age of Legends is seen as a utopian society without war or crime, and devoted to culture and learning. Aes Sedai were frequently devoted to academic endeavours, one of which inadvertently resulted in a hole - 'The Bore' - being drilled in the Dark One's prison. The immediate effects were not realised, but the Dark One gradually asserted power over humanity, swaying many to become his followers. This resulted in the War of Power and eventually the Breaking of the World.
Another example is in the background of the Lands of Lore classic computer game, the history of the Lands is divided in Ages. One of them is also called Golden Age, where the Lands were ruled by the 'Ancients', no wars existed yet, until that age was over with the 'War of the Heretics'.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Giorgio de Santillana, Herta von Dechend: Hamlet´s Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge and its Transmission through Myth, ISBN-10: 0879232153 (Hamlet´s Mill at amazon.com)
- ^ Bridget Ann Henish, The Medieval Calendar Year, p96, ISBN 0-271-01904-2
| Concepts of Heaven | |
|---|---|
| Christian | Kingdom of God | Garden of Eden · Paradise | New Jerusalem | Pearly gates |
| Jewish | Gan Eden | Olam Haba |
| Islamic | Jannah | Houri | Sidrat al-Muntaha |
| Mormon | Celestial Kingdom | Spirit world |
| Ancient Greek | Elysium | Empyrean | Hesperides |
| Celtic | Annwn | Tír na nÓg | Mag Mell |
| Norse | Valhalla | Asgard |
| Indo-European | Paradise | Svarga | Aaru | The Summerland | Myth of Er | Fortunate Isles |
| Related concepts | Nirvana | Millennialism | Utopianism | Golden Age | Arcadia | The guf | Well of souls |
