Competitive Human Glory in Homer's Iliad |
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THE PARLOR Competitive Human Glory in Homer’s Iliad Eric S . Meyers n Book V and Book XXIII of Homer’s Il- Yet, Achilles becomes a civilizing force during iad, life tragically intersects with death to the funeral games he holds for Patroclus when I determine the true nature of heroic glory he confronts mortality and becomes more hu- in competitive human activities. The grim real- mane. Where Achilles once caused only strife, he ity that death results in an afterlife devoid of now reconciles with his bitter enemy Agamem- meaning frames the composite portrait of glory non and mediates conflicts among the irascible these books depict against the backdrop of the Greeks, moreover, where Achilles once viewed Trojan War. Given this tragic reality, the great glory as a winner-take-all proposition, he now warriors of the Iliad seek competitive glory in honors all the warrior-athletes competing in the life within a matrix of death and the applica- funeral games—not just those who win. In this tion of what the philosopher Simone Weil calls manner, a conflict between death and life results “brutal force.”1 At first blush, this appears to in a contrapuntal movement between bestial involve playing deadly and dangerous games savagery and noble grace for Diomedes in Book with only winners and losers, whether it is on V and for Achilles in Book XXIII of the Iliad, as the battlefield of Book V or during the funeral each defines what it means to achieve glory in games of Book XXIII. Closer analysis, however, competitive human activities. suggests a more richly complex vision of glory This contrapuntal movement begins with the in the Iliad, one that may be characterized by a disturbingly bleak conception of the afterlife in conflict between Thanatos, or what Sigmund the Iliad. As Bernard Knox observes, “Homer Freud terms “the death instinct”, and Eros, “the offers no comforting vision of life beyond the instinct of life” that binds civilization together.2 grave.”3 In the Iliad, there is no Elysium with In Book V, Diomedes is not just a ferocious war- “lands of gladness, glades of gentleness” where rior who wounds the goddess Aphrodite, lest “the plains wear dazzling light”, as there is later the Eros she represents diminish his lethality. in Virgil’s Aeneid.4 Nor do resurrection and the He also injures the god Ares in a struggle against possibility of achieving glory through purgation Thanatos, the insatiable desire to kill, that Ares, exist in the afterlife of the Iliad as they do in the the god of war, signifies. In Book XXIII, Achil- Aeneid where some spirits “drink the waters of les exemplifies this thematic conflict between the River Lethe” and return to earth to live again death and life as well. Achilles begins Book XXIII and a “few” enter the most exalted “Fields of preoccupied with death as he mourns his dear- Gladness” as spiritually pure beings.5 Even the est friend, Patroclus, and desecrates the corpse dead Patroclus who returns to earth in Achilles’ of Hector, the Trojan hero who killed Patroclus. dream does so only to ensure his swift burial so 54 | Utraque Unum — Spring 2017 | Eric S. Meyers that he may, as he must, enter the enshrouding subordinate the pursuit of competitive glory to darkness of the Homeric underworld. Hence, ev- achieve eternal blessedness in heaven. In the Iliad, ery human life in the Iliad inexorably results in however, achieving earthly glory is the supreme a “black death,” as each human “generation … goal where the afterlife is a joyless eternity that dies away” like “old leaves,” the winter winds lacks significance, according to Seth Schein.13 As “scatter … across the earth.”6 In death, each per- the Trojan Sarpedon tells his comrade Glaucus, son loses the animating spirit of life to exist as “Ah my friend, if you and I could escape this fray a “ghost, with no significant physical or mental and live forever … I would never fight on the existence”, according to the scholar Seth Schein.7 front lines again or command you to the field Even great heroes, like Diomedes and Achil- where men win fame.”14 However, Sarpedon les, are inexorably fated to become shadows in fights to win glory, as the “fates of death” await death’s black night in the Iliad. every human.15 Likewise, Diomedes does not The grimness of this afterlife becomes espe- “cringe in fear” or “shrink from battle” because cially evident when one reads Homer’s Iliad in the game of war provides him the opportunity to conjunction with his Odyssey. During Odysseus’ achieve earthly glory he can never attain in the visit to the underworld in Book XI of the Odys- obscuring darkness of this afterlife.16 sey, he greets the dead Achilles and says, “Achil- Achilles also chooses earthly competitive les, there’s not a man in the world more blest glory even though it means his early death. Achil- than you—there never has been, never will be les knows from his “immortal” mother Thetis one.”8 Achilles, however, flatly rejects the notion that “two fates bear [him] to the day of death.”17 that he leads a happy life in what the seer Tire- In one, he chooses a short life with great glory; sias calls, the “joyless kingdom of the dead.”9 in the other, he elects a long life mired in obscu- Indeed Achilles poignantly tells Odysseus, “No rity.18 Achilles questions the wisdom of pursuing winning words about death to me. I’d rather glory because he dejectedly believes at one point slave on earth for another man—some dirt-poor that “the same honor waits for the coward and tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive—than the brave … both go down to Death.”19 Although rule down here over all the breathless dead.”10 Achilles “hate[s] … the very gates of Death,” he This statement becomes even more remark- heroically chooses a short life.20 When Achilles able when interpreted in the light of Achilles’ does so, he achieves the only “form of immor- observation in the Iliad that only “the gods live tality” open to him—”the undying glory of his free of sorrows” because Zeus allots “sorrows name.”21 In this manner, Achilles gains “kleios only” or a mixture of “misfortune [and] good aphthiton,” or “glory [that] never dies,” among times in turn” to every mortal.11 Achilles would the living even as the brave and the cowardly seemingly never question the sanity of someone alike endure an eternity of sorrow in the bleak about to exchange the afterlife for the suffering shadow lands of the Iliadic underworld.22 of earthly existence as Aeneas does during his On first analysis, achieving this competitive visit to the underworld in the Aeneid.12 For Achil- glory seems to entail playing a winner-take-all les, the pain and tragedy of life are immeasur- game, which Sarpedon describes to Glaucus ably better than eternal existence in an afterlife when he says that they will either “give our where no one—not even a once towering hero enemy glory or win it for ourselves.”23 The bru- like him—can achieve meaning or attain glory. tality of this kill-or-be-killed contest leads the Such a conception of the underworld of- French philosopher Simone Weil to characterize fers an explanation of the high value of earthly the Iliad as a “poem of force”—one in which war- competitive glory in Book V and Book XXIII of riors turn each person they defeat “into a thing,” the Iliad. If the Iliad expressed a Christian view lest they be objectified themselves by becoming of the afterlife, Diomedes and Achilles might a corpse in battle. As Seth Schein explains, “Weil Utraque Unum — Spring 2017 | 55 Competitive Human Glory in Homer's Iliad | argues that the true hero, the true subject, the binding the power of Eros associated with Aph- center of the Iliad is force.”24 This “force to kill” rodite and the “aggressive instinct” of Thana- becomes readily apparent during Book V when tos.33 Thus, as the Greeks seek to defeat Troy, Diomedes takes the life of one Trojan after an- Diomedes, it seems, must overcome Aphrodite other with stunning ferocity in his “aristeia” or since her Eros, from a Freudian perspective, exhibition of “nobility [in battle skill].”25 Since may animate and unify the civilization Troy Achilles refused to fight following his bitter represents. feud with Agamemnon, Diomedes temporarily More than that, the unifying power of Aph- ascends to become the Greeks’ finest warrior in rodite’s Eros threatens to diminish the man-kill- Book V. Indeed, Book V begins by comparing ing prowess of Diomedes as well as the Trojans Diomedes’ excellence to a “star … rising up to he battles. Aphrodite triggered the Trojan War outshine all other stars.”26 Diomedes exhib- when her Eros enabled the Trojan prince Paris its this excellence by fighting like an inhuman to seize Helen from Menelaus, her Greek hus- force of nature on the battlefield. An epic simile band.34 Yet, her Eros can neuter a warrior’s abil- compares him to a “flash flood” that destroys ity to act honorably on the battlefield. This effect “dikes” or every manmade obstacle the Trojans is evident when Aphrodite whisks Paris from put in his way.27 Not even the injury he suf- battle and then “lays [him] low” with “irresist- fers from the arrow shot by the “shining archer ible longing” to make love to Helen when he Pandarus” stops him.28 Instead, it “spurred his should be fighting Menelaus in a single combat strength” with “raging” fury, as he “mauls” the to decide who will win the Trojan War.35 Paris Trojans like a wounded “lion…piling corpse on is not alone in feeling the influence of Aphro- corpse.”29 dite’s power.