THE PRINCIPLE OF HOPE

Page 758
frontier sculpture, very much against tradition, was also even transferred to the Indian Ocean (cf. the bronze horseman in the tale of the magnetic mountain in the
Arabian Nights), though admittedly it only marks the eastern geographical boundary of the world, without any taboo behind it. Thus the main station of the bronze
horseman is and remains in the Atlantic, only there was the outstretched arm interpreted as a warning, not as a challenge or signpost for example. And although the
Gardens of the Hesperides also lie in the same sea of darkness according to Edrisi, that did not make the darkness any more interesting or dialectical. And the fable of
the dangerous Atlantic ocean persisted up to the time of Columbus, it was one of the strongest objections to the western sea route to the wonderland of India; for it
seemed unthinkable that such disfavour was placed before those marvels. The Greeks also failed to make any connection between the taboo of deterrence and the Isles
of the Blest, as dialectically elementary as this is, and as often — not to say, as essentially — as it was established precisely in topics of paradise. Scheria, Homer's
island of the Phaeacians, lies untouched in the same sea where Scylla howls; nobody reflected that the same Pillars of Hercules on which the Non plus ultra stands were
called the Pillars of Saturn in the most ancient days of Greece, and were thus named after the god of the Golden Age. Hence the horror of the west was not illuminated
by the earthly paradises within it, and the taboo of the statue did not tempt any Arab to break it. It was in vain that the black death ship of the Phaeacians and the
radiance of Scheria both lay in the same place: ‘Truly a fight streamed out, like sunshine or moonlight/Through the high dwelling of the illustrious ruler, Alcinous’ (Od.
VII, 84f.). It was in vain that even the astral myth of the dying sun, from which the horror of the west ultimately stemmed, contained its own Hesperidean light apart
from the darkness: Gilgamesh, Hercules hasten with the sun beyond its setting, in order to gain immortality at the point where the sun rises afresh. But such a connection
between the sea of mud and the island of the Hesperides only became fruitful in the Christian world. For only the Christian­geographical legend and utopia believed it
knew why the earthly paradise is kept unenterable, and the fact that it was unenterable was stressed geographically. A function now appears: Eden lies behind a cordon
of terrors, the cordon full of terrors lies around Eden. The horror of the Atlantic was therefore interpreted differently by Church Fathers than it was by Arabs: it was
connected with the cherubs' sword. And he did in fact prevent anyone from entering Eden, but not from approaching it. Clemens of Alexandria (Stromata V) was the
first to link