Of Wrath and Goodness

It is the wise man who knows that the answer to a contemporary puzzle is often best sought in the ancients.

In the Western heroic tradition, the paragon of the humane warrior is Homer's Hector, prince of the Trojans. He is a fierce fighter: On one particular day, no Greek can stand up to him; his valor puts the whole Greek army to rout. Even on an unexceptional day, Hector can stand up to Ajax, the Greek giant, and trade blow for blow with him. Yet as fierce as Hector can be, he is also humane. He is a loving son to his aged parents, a husband who talks on equal terms with his wife, Andromache, and a tender-hearted father. He and King Priam are the only ones in Troy who treat Helen, the ostensible cause of the war, with kindness. 
One of the most memorable scenes in The Iliad comes when Hector, fresh from the battlefield, strides toward his boy, Astyanax. The child screams with fright at the ferocious form encased in armor, covered with dust and gore. Hector understands his child in an instant and takes off his helmet, with its giant horsehair plume, then bends over, picks his boy up and dandles him, while Andromache looks on happily. Astyanax—who will soon be pitched off the battlements of Troy when the Greeks conquer the city—looks up at his father and laughs in delight. 
The scene concentrates what is most appealing about Hector—and about a certain kind of athlete and warrior. Hector can turn it off. He can stop being the manslayer that he needs to be out on the windy plains of Troy and become a humane husband and father. 

To say that it is appealing does not go far enough:  it is necessary, and it is the hardest thing in the world.  The reason to praise Hector is not just that he got it right, but that getting it right is so very difficult to do.

8 comments:

Cass said...

I love this post. Just sayin' :)

douglas said...

Surely it makes it even more difficult when we live in a society that does it's best to pretend the darker corners of human interaction don't exist, and death can be ignored. 'Don't trouble us with thoughts of such depressing nature, please' they say. Given so very weak a ground to grow in, such a society produces a cornucopia of those who can hardly see a warrior without his helm, even if he remove it. His service, about which he should be heralded and held in high esteem, instead becomes to him a burden, and an unjust one at that, laid upon his shoulders by those unfit to tie his sandal strap.

I hear even the Republican candidates parroting the lines of the left- making our returning troops sound as though they are helpless victims, and I cringe at what our future might bring such an undeserving people.

Texan99 said...

I've been thinking about this all week: "Hector can turn it off."

douglas said...

Yeah, it's an interesting statement. While it's true parts of it need to be turned off, unless there's an underlying logic (perhaps better said a philosophy) that makes both those phases of his person rational within that logic, being able to turn it on and off like a lightswitch would be the behavior of a person with mental problems.

Texan99 said...

Oh, I didn't take it that way at all! I thought it showed great flexibility and ability to adjust to his circumstances. In order to rev himself up to be a great warrior, he didn't have to build a wall to hold back everything gentle. He could control himself without deadening any part. To me, that's mental health.

Grim said...

A great part of it may be that the broader society no longer knows how to support the warriors. The downside of a society in which violence was normal is the exposure to violence; but the upside is that everyone understands what the warrior is going through, and knows what is necessary to help him come back inside the walls.

Our society, as Douglas says, has no way to discuss or even think about the question; and it regard those facing those questions as dangerously mad. In fact they are quite normal, given the experiences they have had.

Texan99 said...

The man (or woman) who's really dangerously mad is the one who can't summon aggression when it's necessary to protect himself, herself, or the innocents nearby.

douglas said...

Oh, T99- I was generalizing, and not speaking to Astyanax specifically, and I agree, that portrayal seems of the healthy kind.

In fact, to Grim's point, I'd say that in many ways, those who've been there and return home to dandle their children and caress their wives probably appreciate it all the more, and are better in that way for it. Astyanax seems to be that way. He knows it may not (and alas, does not) last.