Homer’s IliaD

Well, the Iliad is one of the two major Ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer, the other being The Odyssey. The story takes place towards the end of the Trojan War, which essentially has been a ten year attack on the city of Troy by a coalition of Greek states. At the center of the Iliad is the greatest of Greek warriors and hero of the Trojan War, Achilles. The Iliad is regarded as not only the first real example of European literature, but as one of the greatest stories ever written. 

So in the Iliad Achilles is famously described as having the choice between a long but relatively mundane life, or a short life but one that will bring him everlasting glory. Here’s what he says exactly when  he’s explaining his two possible fates to Odysseus, he says:

''My mother Thetis tells me that there are two ways in which I may meet my end. If I stay here and fight, I shall not return alive but my name will live forever: whereas if I go home my name will die, but it will be long before death shall take me.’'

So to give just a bit more context here, what’s happened at this point in the story is that Achilles has withdrawn from fighting with the Greeks against the Trojans because he feels he’s been dishonoured by the supreme commander of the Greek armies, Agamemnon. It’s at this moment that he contemplates returning home. 

But then he remembers something, he remembers his mother’s prophecy about him, made before he was born, which, as we've seen, said that he would either live a short, glorious life or a long, obscure one. Now, as I said, with everything that’s happened up until now, Achilles is tempted to leave Troy and fulfill the prophecy’s second option. But then what happens is that, just as he’s preparing to leave for home, his best friend Patroclus is killed by the Trojan prince Hector. It’s at this point that Achilles returns to battle, knowing full well that he’s now sealed his fate, that’s to say, he’s chosen the short, sacrificial life of glory as result of his deeds, and not the path of the long, ordinary life at home. 

Ok, so now the question is why does Achilles choose the short life of glory over the long but uneventful one? Well I think the answer is pretty obvious. Glory through heroism gives him a kind of eternal remembrance, right? He goes down in history so to speak. He puts his identity permanently on record. Glory and heroism gives him a kind of immortality he could never achieve if he just played it safe at home and stuck to the uneventful life! 

And by the way, it’s interesting, what Achilles chooses to do is exactly the opposite of what Odysseus in Homer’s later The Odyssey does. That’s to say, Odysseus wants nothing more than to return to a safe homecoming, where he can live out the rest of a long life with his family. He’d rather be eternally forgotten than sacrifice those small uneventful moments that belong to growing old and spending time with family. How very different this is from Achilles, who knows that he will die alone without wife or child beside him! 

Anyway, the point with Achilles is that he recognizes the immortalizing power of glory and heroism. Actually what you could say is that in a way what he recognizes is the power of art over nature or over his own earthly life. So what do I mean by that? Well, by dying heroically for glory Achilles turns himself into a story or a legend or a song, and so turns himself and his life into a work of art, one which is destined to last forever! Actually we see the first instance of something like this in the oldest story in the world, the epic of Gilgamesh, where Gilgamesh wants the events of his life written down on stone tablets so as to give his life longevity and turn it into one of legend.  

And you know in all of this there’s something else that’s fascinating here too. And that’s the idea of dying at the right time. That’s to say, what it means to be a hero, in this ancient Greek world, is not just to welcome death, and not fear it, but to achieve the perfect moment of a perfect death, to make death, what would you say, the defining moment of reality, of one’s life! 

Actually, now that I think about it, it’s interesting, Nietzsche through the mouth of his great character Zarathustra, said something similar. He also talked about how important it was to die at the appropriate time. To be more precise, what Zarathustra said was this, he said: “Many die too late, and a few die too early. The doctrine still sounds strange, but Die at the right time!” 

Now what the heck is that about? What’s Nietzsche trying to say here? Well, I think that the first thing he seems to be suggesting, actually somewhat like the ancient Stoics do, is that we should try as much as possible to make our death voluntary, that is, we should try to conquer natural death by transforming it into a free act; so we shouldn’t let life drag on if it does no good, we shouldn’t hang on too long, we shouldn’t let death sneak up on us like a thief! 

Well then if we’re to choose when to die, when’s that supposed to be exactly? Well, I think Nietzsche would say that it’s when our highest goals and our creative activity has come to an end, or in other words, when it becomes increasingly impossible to live a meaningful and creative life. And so notice this, that in choosing when it’s appropriate to die, we crown our life. 

Or to put it another way, when we die at the right time, what we’re doing is letting our spirit shine forth in our death like an evening glow on the earth!

Now having said all this, I should mention something here. It’s this: Nietzsche himself wasn’t the best example of someone dying at the right time! If anyone could be accused of, as Zarathustra says, hanging on their branch too long and of failing to master the difficult art of going at the right time, it’s Nietzsche. For those of you who don’t know, in 1889, at the age of 44, Nietzsche collapsed on the streets of Turin, Italy, while trying to protect a horse from being flogged by its abusive owner, at which point he slowly lapsed into madness and spent the next ten years mentally and physically incapacitated, with increasingly little idea of where or who he was. Then at age 55, essentially vacant and catatonic, he finally died, died, you might say, for the second time. 

Now given all this it’s pretty clear that Nietzsche died on the wrong side of Zarathustra’s balance book, and that his death didn’t shine like an evening glow on the earth.

But here’s something to think about. What if Nietzsche hadn’t died at 55, but what if he died 11 years earlier in the very act of trying to protect that horse? Wouldn’t he have died a better death, a victorious death, one that in a way summed up a lifetime of his goals and aspirations and his courage? And so wouldn’t it have been a death that Zarathustra would have been proud of?

Ok but anyway, to conclude, let me go back to Achilles and the Iliad for a moment. So of course Achilles’ choice to go for the short life of glory speaks to this time, right; that’s to say Achilles’ decision to choose eternal glory over a long life was clearly seen as the ultimate sign of heroism in the Classical world. 

But I would argue that part of the reason this little passage in the Iliad resonates so strongly with us is not just because it’s Achilles’ prophecy but because it’s a choice that we all, to some extent, face, a choice, that is, whether we want to strive for something more worthy and pay the price for it, or whether we want to live a long risk free life, but one that passes up our secret hopes and dreams!

Now this isn’t to say that these hopes and dreams we have are always about wanting to set up immortality for ourselves in the annals of history. No, some are simply visions of our own potential and glimpses of our unrealized ideals in whatever small measure. But however small, trying to actualize our potential and live up to our ideals still does mean some risk and courage and sacrifice. 

But, let’s be fair to the other side of things too. That’s to say, let’s also give rightful consideration to Odysseus’ choice, you know, the decision to live the long, safe domestic life. That’s certainly also got its own virtues too, even though it’s a different kind of existence. 

In any case, I guess my ultimate point here was just to say that at the end of the day, Achilles is not just mythological. He’s in us all, he’s that fork in the road between our two different destinies, one that will take us home to Phthia, the other, to the battlefield at Troy!