The Iliad A Study of Men & their Nature: The Shape of Honour - Power of Men's Love and the Depth of their Pain in Response to Loss

Man this story always gets to me

The Ultimate Tale of Love & Loss

In 2004 there was a new adaptation of the Troy myth, of the Iliad to be specific. It got into some of the ideas in there, some of the battles and heroes. There were problems of course, but the movie was pretty good from a cinematic and acting perspective. The main thing it got right was the main idea of the Trojan Myth and of the Iliad.

To be specific that idea is the passion with which men love, and depth of our grief when we have lost that which we love.

If the story of King David is about a man overcoming all the pains of the world with only God for company, the men of the Iliad are full of passion and yet must perish. There is an incredibly vulnerable yet limited capacity to their lives as they are each and every one of them so utterly and completely mortal.

The story as everyone knows is about the ‘face that launched a thousand ships’ and about how Achilles the greatest of all the Acheans fought against and conquered Hektor. The story from there wraps up with the conquest of Troy, the many crimes of the Greeks and their divinely ordained punishments. All begins in love and ends in tragedy. Because life is tragedy. Life is suffering. Life is also a mythic tale, one full of love and beauty.

This is the simple Truth of this story and many others.

It may well be that Achilles’ wrath brought untold suffering upon the Greeks, but it brought down even more upon the sons of Troy. The reason lies in that he frankly didn’t care about Helen, or the city of Troy. This war for him is about glory, but the war becomes quite personal the moment his beloved cousin Patroclus dies.

Naturally the degenerates out there have stamped into our culture that the two were lovers despite there being no evidence of this. The fact is that Achilles loves his cousin because they are family and because on some level they are brothers. This is the reason for which he loves him.

So that while he might love glory and he might have his honour, this is not what motivates him and isn’t enough to inspire him to fight for a King like Agamemnon who has taken Briseis from him. And who is Briseis? None other than the woman captured by the Greeks that the son of Peleus has fallen for.

The trouble is that his desire to keep her for himself, has cost Agamemnon dearly as it has lost him the support of one of the greatest of his commanders’ loyalty. And like a lot of bosses out there he doubles down rather than admitting a mistake and seeking to fix it.

So the situation escalates and escalates, with Achilles soon punished for the stupidity of Agamemnon; Patroclus dons the warrior’s armour whereupon he gets himself killed by Hektor.

That’s right, Achilles goes to confront Hektor, kills him, drags his corpse around and mocks the broken Trojans. Once he’s back in his tent though he’s visited by Priam, who begs for the corpse of Hektor.

This all boils down to one important theme that you may have noticed up to now and if you haven’t no problem, I’ll break it down for you.

The story is about deepest love and deepest loss and how men deal with it. Hektor faces the inevitable loss of his own life and proceeds to it with the utmost dignity. Preferring to do what is honourable for his people, for his nation and for his family with nary any thoughts for himself.

It is undeniable that his death is a major part of the tragedy, but it is also one of the best parts of the legend that is to be found here.

Because it is only through loss that we find ourselves, only through the overcoming of them that we might find try strength and courage. Hektor isn’t great because he’s a good man, he’s great because he suffers the tragedy of knowing he is to be cut down before his time and rises to the occasion.

He’s a metaphor for the man who sacrifices for others. This might not be popular these days but once upon a time people deeply admired a martyr. No one would criticize the character, while nowadays if an author was to write a hero like him he’d be criticized by the bugmen of the world that he should have found a way, that they’d have found a way out of the mess or that their pet-character would and could have done better.

And yet in the state of mind he’s in, Achilles would kill any and all of their characters. Hands down.

It isn’t about how ‘badass’ you think you are or your favourite hero is. It is about one man grieving for the loss of his brother and the other going to his death. It is about Hektor choosing to sacrifice himself as he did indeed kill Patroclus and

Love of the Deepest Sort

Love of the sort that Hektor feels for his father, wife and son are the sort that is very particular to Men. It is deep and abiding, and bound up in his honour and sense of piety that are inseparable from the character.

This might seem a strange thing to say in these modern times where ‘Pietas’ or ‘Piety/Duty’ are dirty words but it is the core of who Hektor is. It is the core of how his love operates and even kind of how Patroclus’ love works. The reason this is the case is that Hektor’s sword is pointed towards heaven as he truly believes in the Divine, even as he honours his father above all other people, honours his wife above all women as he should and honours his son above all the other sons’ of Troy and honours of course Troy above all other nations. He also honours his brothers above all the other men of Troy, and sisters above all women and girls save for his wife.

This is how it should be. This is why Hektor is the ideal man. He is who we must aspire after in some ways.

As to Patroclus he feels the same for Achilles, honouring him above all other men as they are brothers in the truest sense of the word. He also honours Greece above all the other nations of the earth.

The clash between the two is one of the greatest tragedies in the story. The reason being that both are good men. Both are heroes and both sacrifices themselves for their brothers and nations.

Love permeates most of their scenes, and love inspires them to action. But their love doesn’t stand apart from the traditional Roman virtue of ‘Pietas’ or ‘Piety’ as we call it to-day, but is built upon it. This is the key to traditional manhood: Piety in the Filial, National and even the classic sense towards the Divine. This is the nature of traditional masculinity.

To strip a man of his filial nature is to strip him of his very manhood. The ancients and medievals understood this, yet it is a lesson that’s been forgotten in modern times. This is why I’ll back up the likes of

maryh10000

and

Librarian of Celaeno

who have argued that the story must be put back into the curriculum alongside its sequels. The reason is simple; people must see Achilles and Hektor. They must see these diametric opposites yet similar forces of masculinity.

They must see what the filial man would do to inspire them to aspire after his noble example.

Still they must also in old age aspire after Priam’s noble example as he is too feeble to protect his sons’ in old age at least physically so how does he serve them? He serves them by keeping the family bound together and seeking to shield them all as best he could, he is also as King seeking to protect them and his people from the invaders. In a lot of ways he IS Troy. Because the King is the physical embodiment of the nation in short as Henri II says in the Lion in Winter, he is the nation made human.

You also have the love of the likes of Paris for Helen. Now some don’t believe there’s any love, but there is, the trouble is that it is the young passionate stupid love of youth, in contrast to the old middle-aged love of Hektor and the old man love of Priam. These latter two men have an older form of passion that ages, refines and purifies itself with age. It is the sort that is rare and that all men deep down crave.

It is the sort of love that Odysseus has for his beloved Penelope.

That said, you also have the love of many of the warriors of Greece or Mycenae to be more apt and era-appropriate who love their nation with a great deal of passion. Many of them have been dragged across the sea to fight for Menelaus’ desire to reclaim his wife. It can’t be easy.

Or if you prefer the Trojan perspective they’ve been dragged over the waves to fight for Agamemnon’s greed.

Either way, it can’t be easy. It also cannot be wholly shamed, as these men aren’t completely at fault, and even Menelaus’ desire to reclaim his wife is understandable, given that no man likes losing his wife to another. It is the greatest shame that any guy can go through.

Loss & Pain

War is madness. This is the main takeaway from all stories regarding the War of Troy. It isn’t a story that glorifies violence for its own sake but the comportment of warriors themselves.

What do I mean by this? I mean that it glorifies Honour of course. Any cursory reading of the story knows this and knows this is what the Ancients took from it. The readiness with which Hektor throws his life away for Troy is nothing short of inspiring and moving. He doesn’t do it because he wants to, but because he must.

His mentality is that the battle with Achilles is inevitable, and he doesn’t know what Achilles will do if he doesn’t throw himself forward so he does it. The mentality is as follows; ‘Ask not what your Kingdom may do for you, but what you may do for it!’

This was once the mindset of our people towards their kingdoms and nations. But when the nation and kingdom were dissolved for ‘supranational’ organizations and economic zones people lost something important. Honour fled, and nations evaporated and bureaucrats and lawyers debated the legitimacy of these things in the first place. Why? Because they’ve no understanding of the value of these things.

Lawyers and Bureaucrats will never fight in a war. They have none of the valour and honour of their ancestors therefore they’ve no sense of loyalty or Honour. It is that simple.

Hektor is no Lawyer, no soulless Bureaucrat. He’s a prince and a soldier who knows his loyalty is to his kingdom and his father, and family and son. Filial piety isn’t just pointed behind you at your parents but also most of all towards one’s children.

In turn though Achilles is a man who must avenge his beloved cousin Patroclus. He has an obligation to do so. That said in the doing of this he loses himself to an extent in his hatred, this is the tragedy of that heroic lord of Myrmidons.

Swift-footed Achilles is a tragic figure, his suffering echoes across the ages. His pain is still something that remains with us. It is something that we can all sympathize with and relate to as Men.

The anger of Achilles is rooted in his love and in his suffering. Life is Suffering. Life is Pain. And that of Men in particular is rooted in these things and also in our capacity for Love. The deeper our Love the deeper and more deeply rooted is our Pain and Grief.

This is why to overcome that Grief, to come out Stronger, Harder and more like Hektor is true Strength. This is what it means to have Honour. And to be clear, Patroclus, Odysseus and Achilles are all fine men in their own right.

There is also the pain of the city that is besieged and suffering through 10 years of depredations, sieging and just constant back and forth until she just eventually gives herself over to madness after the Iliad when the Trojan Horse is presented to her.

Loss and grief are inevitable things in life and in the Iliad they are demonstrated to be like gravity; inevitable.

The thing is that each character responds differently, and yet not unreasonably. So that one can only say this: Every Man when confronted by Grief will show himself to be one of several men; Odysseus, Priam, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Hektor, Paris, Achilles, Patroclus and so on.

When confronted by Love he’ll likewise demonstrated himself to be one of these men. So that he will either break when confronted by pain and give himself over to such rage that not even the Greek gods will prove able to stop him if they were aligned against him. Or he will accept his fate, point his sword to heaven and proclaim himself his kin’s defender like Hektor.

Jack Sparrow was right when he said there is what a man can do and what he can’t do. Sure, but there is also; ‘What a Man will do, and what he won’t do.’ And also; ‘What motivates a Man? Wrath or Love?’

Most Men have something as Takuan Soho says in Vagabdondo/Musashi; a dog, a child, a parent and so on, they all have something they love and would kill and die for. The question is what?

All these things, all these factors and ideas are why the Iliad has remained such a powerful piece of literature. Love, pain, suffering and triumph and Honour are all powerful ideas, they all form and shape human beings. So that don’t just read the words, or those of other books but absorb them into your being. You too can be Hektor and Achilles, you need only absorb their essence as passed down by Homer into your very being.

Because at the end of the day, the story of Troy is that of the end of all nations and kingdoms, and the collapse of Empire. Legacy is eternal as is Love and Honour and Glory, because men remember the deeds and passion with which their predecessors loved with. All this and more can be found in this book of books, in this founding Epic of Greece.

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Also Crown of Blood has a new edition, with maps, character bios and more!