"But about your own destiny, Menelaus,
dear to Zeus, it’s not for you to die
and meet your fate in the stallion-land of Argos,
no, the deathless ones will sweep you off to the world’s end,
the Elysian Fields, where gold-haired Rhadamanthys waits
where life glides on in immortal ease for mortal man;
no snow, no winter onslaught, never a downpour there,
but night and day the Ocean River sends up breezes,
singing winds of the West refreshing all mankind.
All this because you are Helen’s husband now
the gods count you the son-in-law of Zeus."
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 4, lines 631-641. Proteus, the prophetic shape shifting sea god, tells Menelaus that he will not die and end up a shade in Hades. Instead he is fated to live eternity in the heavenly Eylsian Fields – because he is dear to Zeus and is husband of Zeus’ daughter Helen. In Greek mythology the Elysian Fields are the final resting place of the souls of the heroic and virtuous.