Until the discovery of the Gilgamesh epic, Western literature began around 750 BC with Homer’s great heroic themes which echo those of Gilgamesh, but also include withdrawal of the hero from battle, fights to the death between great warriors, feudal loyalty and disobedience, revenge and its bloody realisation.
The central theme in heroic societies is power expressed through action. Although the Bible says that in the beginning was the word, heroic societies emphasise the deed. People in heroic society are what they do; they are the sum of their actions. What people do is defined by social roles, rules and rewards. In heroic society people know who and what they are by knowing their role and the rules which bind roles. When they know their role – their place – they know almost everything they have to know. They know what they are owed and what they owe others. They know what to do in the face of the enemy and how to relate to warriors and camp-followers. There is a clear understanding of standards and orders of rank. Without a role people would not know who they are. In short, people in heroic society are what they do and what they do is largely influenced by their social roles.
To say that people are what they do sounds banal to modern ears. But in our day, most people disagree with the heroic view, believing instead that there lurks in humans a hidden source of actions – a puppeteer pulling the strings of action. We have diverse names for this actor – I, soul, mind, self, psyche, ego, character, personality. Yet, for Homer, there are no hidden depths, there is no puppeteer. Homer makes no distinction between actor and action in the same way in which we should make no distinction between the flash and the lightning (since the lightning is the flash). And so there is, for Homer, no I, soul, mind, self or psyche and so no psychology. Achilles is obviously different from Hector, and is so described, but neither is described in terms of an underlying personality, i.e. a quasi-mechanical force which compels them to act in their different ways. Homer’s heroes are fated to live a long life of security and mediocrity, or a short career of danger and glory, and there is no possibility of escaping from their fate by appeal to an immortal soul or mind which exercises free will.
Clearly, Homer’s characters choose and decide courses of action even if Homer lacks a language of reflective choice. If heroes are deprived of their just rewards, for example, they are faced with the need to choose an appropriate course of action. This dilemma sets in motion the plot of the Iliad and gives it its dramatic tension. But this dilemma assumes that Achilles, deprived of his just rewards by his commander-inchief, Agamemnon, had a choice in the matter. Modern readers imagine Achilles struggling with his possibilities, overwhelmed by various alternatives which he must finally resolve by private, critical deliberation. But reading the Iliad it is clear that Achilles does not choose; he does what he must. The heroic code has been violated, he acts accordingly. Achilles is fated to fight and kill Hector after which he will himself die heroically. The heroes of the Iliad accept their destiny and are ennobled by that acceptance.
Heroic life was a constant pursuit of virtue, excellence, power, courage, nobility. Young men were expected to be impetuous and fiery; old men to be prudent and visionary; warriors to be courageous and self-reliant; women to be chaste and useful. Women, however, represented a ‘problem’ for warriors.
In the poignant scene with Hector, Andromache and their son, the dilemma of the warrior woman is beautifully and tragically outlined. Since a woman’s status depends on her warrior husband, the possibility of his death looms large in her thinking, especially when battle approaches. Andromache wants to hold Hector back from as many battles as possible and keep him in her world of comfort and security. It is clear, however, that Homer believes that warrior women really want their men to resist them and ‘go out among the flying spears’. As Hector says, he would not be able to face his people if he refused to fight and seek glory. His social status (and that of Andromache’s) depends on his status as a successful warrior. Andromache upsets Hector when she begs him to desist from fighting and stay with her and their child, but she does not really provide him with a moral dilemma. He will do what he must do, or as they say in Hollywood: ‘A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.’
Hollywood did, in fact, make a movie based on the confrontation between Andromache and Hector and transferred it to the Wild West. Starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly, High Noon begins with Gary (a lawman) and Grace leaving their wedding ceremony. Word arrives that villains are on their way to settle accounts with the townsfolk and its lawman. Gary straps on his guns to the chagrin of his bride who attempts to dissuade him from his potentially fatal course of action. She tells him in no uncertain terms that he has new responsibilities to her and so he should leave the townsfolk to their fate. This, of course, he cannot do. He cannot run from danger, abandon his fellow citizens and spend his life looking over his shoulder. He must stay and face his enemies because his reputation is founded on the moral code he lives by. His bride is unimpressed and gives him a choice: either leave with her or face the villains alone. He stays, she leaves. And we can leave the movie at this point because Hollywood takes over and the movie ends happily with the villains dead, the newly-weds united, travelling into the sunset.
After an auspicious start, High Noon leaves Homer behind in his tent pondering the dilemma of the hero’s loved ones who live with the fear that the heroic code, which gives them their status and wealth, will lead to their early deaths. Because heroes strive to excel and cannot accept loss of face, they stubbornly risk their lives and the lives of their families to achieve glory. There is an inexorable tension between the necessities of battle and the welfare of the family because all parties know that this heroic determination to excel may do damage to friends and community. Heroic self-assertion is thus set against the well-being of society and it represents one of the main tragic themes in epic poetry. Heroes do not intend their loved ones to perish but they know that this can only be avoided by success in war. It is not intentions that count, but successful performance in battle.
Since Homeric heroes must be strong and successful, intentions are irrelevant. Results count more than effort so that Homeric heroes are always under pressure to perform. They cannot trade on past successes; they must continue to fight successfully so that they are forever in a state of preparedness for battle. They are judged by others and are, accordingly, concerned about what others think of them. Since they can only please others by competitive excellence, they set the judgements of peers against estimations of themselves – what they do is, in the final analysis, what counts. In such a worldview it is pointless to distinguish between a moral error and a mistake because both lead to failure. And failure will be met with disapproval whatever the cause.
Homer compares his warrior heroes to lions, wild boars, storms, rivers in flood, raging fires. Their eyes flash, fire beats in their breasts, they are filled with fury as they leap at the enemy with terrifying cries. He describes dying in the most gruesome terms. One warrior lies in the dust with hands stretched out to friends, shrieking, another bellows with pain, clutching the bloody earth or biting the cold bronze which has severed his tongue, another has his brains spread over the face of a friend, another writhes like a roped bull about the spear, and another has his liver thrust out and watches his lap fill with blood. Life and death are contrasted in stark terms: alive a hero is full of vitality; dead there is nothing but torment.
Homer does not glorify war. When a hero dies it is agonising and he travels to Hades. Unlike a Christian heaven or Islamic paradise, Hades is not a place to look forward to. Faced with the knowledge that the more they fight the quicker they die, and knowing that their deaths will be painful and that Hades is their eternal place of torment, the obvious question is: why do warriors continue to fight?
For Homer’s heroes it was obvious that whether hero or coward, noble person or base, death awaits all. Life is therefore the standard of value and the way one acts in life is the standard against which one is judged. To understand that death lies ahead, that defeat not victory is the final outcome, is a virtue. The