Achilles’ Suffering and Destiny
The conflict of
Achilles when he must decide between a destiny that will lead to his heroic
glorification and one that will entail a long life, is more than a personal
conflict. It characterizes the complexity and difficulty of a Homeric hero in
action. The question of whether Achilles chooses the right destiny is based
upon a deeper question about life, death, and the transition between the two.
Though the hero hates and fears death, he chooses rightly when he chooses to
face and accept it in battle, because but it is his mortality itself that makes
him a hero, he dies not only for personal glory, but more transcendently, for the
glory of a song that lives on.
It
is clear that Achilles does not want to fight and die. While he lives, the hero
is god-like and loved by the gods. To die, in opposition to that, it “to have
one’s knees and limbs ‘undone,’” and to “go into the dark.”[1]
When a hero dies, he is seized by hateful darkness, and taken to a murky
underworld about which little is know to mortals. This is what the hero faces every
time he goes into battle, and Homer emphasizes that the soldier would prefer
not to fight – the Achaeans rush for their ships, and Achilles, after
considering that both the cowardly man and the man of action must die
eventually, loses his incentive to fight. Death is always on his mind, and he
describes his life, including the fighting and ravaging the Troad, ‘constantly
exposing my own life in battle’.[2]
When he is speaking to Lycaon he says “I too am subject to death and cruel
fate: there will be a morning or an evening or a noon-day, when someone will
take my life in battle, hitting me with a spear or arrow from the bow-string.”[3]
No hero is exempt from fear. Achilles himself is frightened by Agenor’s spear,
and later, seemingly facing an inevitable death by the River Scamader, he is
told by Poseidon, “Do not tremble too much nor be afraid.”[4]
In
spite of this, that fear that accompanies the idea of inevitable death for
Achilles and the Homeric hero, it is his mortality itself that makes him a
hero, so Achilles choice to embrace death is inextricably linked with his
identity, that of a hero. Sarpedon says to Glaukos, “… could we but survive
this war to live forever deathless, without age, I would not ever go again to
battle, nor would I send you there for honor’s sake! But now a thousand shapes
of death surround us, and no man can escape them, or be safe. Let us attack –
whether to give some fellow glory or to win it from him.”[5]
One sees that if the hero really was god-like, as he is often described, he
would be exempt from the pressures of death and age, which include incentive to
live a virtuous and courageous life. This is also evinced by the actions of the
gods, who are consistently less virtuous than mortals. They lack that awesome
virtue of heroism, courage, because if they are wounded in battle they can be
instantly healed, for example, (Athena). They don’t make sacrifices for each
other, neither in the sense of offering up a sacrifice, as humans do, nor in
the sense of allowing other gods to have their way, at least not out of charity
or compassion. Their
relationships, romantic and otherwise, lack the depth and intensity of mortal
relationships that set couples like Penelope and Odysseus apart. The hero will
die a hero’s death, and it will be a dignified and glorious one, but that death
haunts him during life and gives his life both purpose and limitation. In light
of this understanding of mortality affecting virtue, Achilles acceptance of
death and suffering is an intrinsic part of his being a hero.
A
great incentive to face death for the hero is personal glory. Throughout The
Iliad, we hear about ‘deathless glory’ and ‘widespread glory’ over and over.
When Lord Phoinix is attempting to coerce Achilles to fight with them, he tells
a story about a hero of old who was coaxed out of his anger with gifts. At the
end he says, “Value the gifts; rejoin the war; Akhains afterward will give you
a god’s honor. If you reject the gifts and then, later, enter the deadly fight,
you will not be accorded the same honor, even though you turn the tide of war!”[6]
Other Homeric heroes demonstrate
the importance of personal glory; Hector is hoping to slay an Achaean champion
who answers his challenge, because if he does, he plans to allow him to be
buried by the shore of the sea, so that passing sailors will be able to say;
“That is the grave of a hero of olden time, who bright Hector slew in combat.”[7]
When Achilles learns Patroklos has been slain in battle, he exclaims,
“Likewise, if destiny like his awaits me, I shall rest when I have fallen! Now,
though, may I win my perfect glory and make some wife of Troy break down…”[8]
Achilles chose a heroic destiny, short life, and eternal glory, rather than a
long but inglorious existence, and when Patroklos is dead he accepts his own
death.
However,
glory is not straightforward, simply existing to be won by the hero and playing
the role of consoling the hero for his death. Helen sees herself as the cause
of all the trouble, whose sin has produced suffering for everyone. She asks
Hector to sit down, “Come here and rest upon this couch with me, dear brother.
You are the one most afflicted by harlotry in me and by his madness, our
portion, all of misery, given by Zeus that we may live in song for men to
come.” Helen is a legendary figure, not because of great accomplishments, nor
for feminine virtue, like Penelope’s loyalty, but for her guilt and
suffering. Suffering produces
song, and by song man comes to understand that suffering is universal to all
men, comes from the gods, and must be accepted. Achilles contributes to this
overarching truth of suffering through his death both by accepting his death in
accordance with the will of the gods, and providing material for song for
future generations.
Personal glory is
not enough of a consolation for the Homeric hero. Achilles chooses the heroic
path, and is filled with bitterness as he thinks about Agamemnon’s treatment of
him. Agamemnon tries to persuade him to come back and fight with great gifts
that represent the honor he will bestow on him, as we see when Phoinix says,
“If you return to battle without the presents, you will not be so highly
honored, even if you repel the attack.”[9]
For Achilles, though, the gifts have lost their symbolic value in light of the
humiliation he received from Agamemnon. If he has been treated in such a way
after fighting like a true hero, risking his life and fighting with his men,
then here is no honor to be won, since the weak coward and the strong hero must
die alike. From this mindset, the thought of inevitable death is no longer a
stimulus for the hero, as it is how Sarpedon describes it to Glaukos. This is
where Achilles is contemplates going home without glory, for it seems equally
reasonable to die of old age in bed at that point. He is right to ask for
impossibly large sums of gifts, because mere things cannot be worth a man’s
life. Achilles doesn’t return for the gifts, nor does he ever shake this
cynical attitude about heroism.
Speaking to Priam in the last book, one notes that he still sees war in
an unheroic light. Similarly in the Odyssey,
Achilles, who is in the underworld, rejects the compliment that he is the
mightiest in the underworld, because he would rather be in the lowest position
on earth than the highest in Hades. He bitterly asks, “what joy have I in it,
that I have endured the war to the end?”[10]
This view sees heroic accomplishments and virtues in the light of the suffering
they bring about.
Achilles is right
and true to choose death, because his identity as a hero cannot be without his
mortality, and facing inevitable death is the greatest way to display and
embrace his mortality. He dies
rightly for personal glory, but even more so, he sacrifices a long life for the
sake of the glory of a song, which explains to mortals both the greatness and
fragility of man.
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