My first notice of Achilles came when I was very young. I had only to reach behind my head to the bookcase that served as headboard. The encyclopedias of Funk & Wagnalls stretched the length of the shelf.
Sometime around third grade Mom bought the set from a traveling salesman. Thereafter I woke and went to sleep with the alphabetized knowledge of everything then known.
I would look through a few pages before sleep.
Sometimes I even read them.
The first book I opened had a picture of a warrior, down on one knee, with an arrow stuck in his heel. The caption said his name was Achilles. I thought his name was probably pronounced, Ah-chill-ees. It was years before I learned it should be pronounced, Ah-kill-ees. (correct pronunciation is always iffy when learning by reading rather than by hearing).
A little copy above the picture told the outline of his story. It was all I had until I read The Iliad in high school. That little picture and little bit of text impressed me more than the skimpy information seemed to warrant. I didn’t know why then. Now I think I do.
Many people think The Iliad is about the Trojan War. Homer thought otherwise.
In the first words of his epic poem, he asks the Muse to sing - through him - the Wrath of Achilles. Homer regarded Trojan War history as only backdrop for the awesome prowess of western literature’s earliest Action-Hero.
And what a hero he was. Born of a mortal man, Peleus, King of the Myrmidons, and Thetis, an immortal sea nymph. Achilles was demi-god and direct heir to a kingdom, at birth.
To ensure his immunity in battle, Thetis held new-born Achilles by his heels and dipped him in the river Styx. This left only his heels vulnerable. It was the equivalent of Superman’s debilitating weakness when exposed to Kryptonite.
None of this background bio was included in The Iliad because Homer’s audience already knew all that. When the arrow of Paris strikes the heel of Achilles no one needed to be told how such an insignificant wound could kill the mighty Achilles.
Swift Achilles - a hero of fierce impulsive action.
Achilles’s pride may seem to modern readers a weakness as significant as the weakness of his heels. Not so, for the heroes of The Iliad, pride is naturally compatible with honor.
In the very first chapter of The Iliad Achilles clashes with Agamemnon over the lovely slave girl, Breseis. Achilles claimed her as his rightful prize of battle, Agamemnon as leader of the forces against Troy pulls rank, taking the girl for himself. Achilles is enraged. Only the intervention of friends restrains him from killing Agamemnon on the spot.
He retreats to his tent where he petulantly sulks. He stays in his tent, refusing to fight until chapter nineteen. In chapter eighteen, Achilles’s friend, Patroklos, is killed by the Trojan Prince, Hector. This fresh outrage brings him storming back to the battlefield. Achilles’s long almost childish sulk amazed me on first reading.
What kind of hero stays in a huff - and away from the action, for 80% of his own saga?
The answer is a hero who values honor above all.
Achilles only real interest in Breseis was as trophy. When his trophy was unfairly taken from him, his honor was insulted. Honor is restored by vengeance. He should have killed Agamemnon. He settled by refusing to fight for a king who had dishonored him.
What could be more obviously necessary?
Achilles is an archetype; so is Odysseus. These two archetypes, or some combination of both, have dominated Western concepts of what a hero should be ever since Homer sang their glory into legend.
The Greeks thought of The Iliad and The Odyssey in almost the way Christians think of the Bible. These two books codified Honor, Courage, and Right-Behavior for many centuries.
Even so, Achilles and Odysseus represent nearly contradictory notions of Courage, Honor, and Right-Behavior.
Achilles personifies Honor. Odysseus personifies Sophron.
The word, sophron, is Greek; the meaning is universal. It describes a person who isn’t necessarily extra intelligent, but who is extra skillful in how he uses the intelligence he has. Odysseus’s triumph over every adversity during his hazardous return from Troy to Ithaca shows the advantage of sophron over and over, again. He wasn’t the fastest, bravest, or strongest of the heroes in Homer’s poems. He was a new sort of hero; a hero who won by wit, rather than brawn
Achilles, the direct hero of the Iliad, held personal glory in battle higher than winning the war. Odysseus, the clever hero of the Odyssey, held winning the war higher than glory.
Acclaim for dying bravely in battle, shifted to acclaim for winning the battle. This shift of emphasis marked the end of the ancient era and the birth of the new.
All this in the space between two lyric poems – The Iliad & The Odyssey.
Achilles dashed valiantly to battle. Odysseus calculated the odds.
When Odysseus sailed near the Isle of the Siren’s he plugged the ears of his sailors with wax to protect them from the lethal allure the Siren’s song. He left his own ears open but had himself lashed to the ship’s mast in case his resolve weakened. He was the first man to hear the seductive song of the Sirens and survive.
Odysseus and crew slipped safely past the treacherous isle where so many others had been drawn to their death.
In the cave of the giant cyclops, Polyphemus, Odysseus, and his crew face being eaten one-by-one. Polyphemus demands the name of their leader. Odysseus tells the one-eyed giant his name is Nobody. They are held captive for days. Some are eaten. Odysseus offers the strong wine he has brought with him to the cyclops who drinks it all and falls into drunken sleep.
While the giant sleeps, Odysseus and four others prepare a sharpened stake which they shove into Polyphemus’s single eye. Enraged, he leaps to his feet, knocking aside the great stone that has blocked exit from his cave. Outside, he calls to his brother cyclopes for help saying, “Nobody has put out my eye”! Uncertain what to do with this puzzling information, they walk back to whatever they were doing before. Odysseus and crew escape to their ship. Polyphemus throws massive boulders at them but because he is blind, they all miss.
Odysseus sails safely away.
Finally, Odysseus reaches his Kingdom home of Ithaca. He has been away for twenty years - ten years fighting in Troy, ten more before reaching home.
Achilles would have charged straightaway to reclaim his throne. Odysseus reconnoiters. Disguising himself as a beggar he learns that a gang of ambitious young nobles has been lounging about his house for years, feasting on his food and wine - each hoping to become king by marriage to Penelope.
Penelope has put off these “suiters” by saying she will choose one for husband when she finishes weaving a funeral shroud for her father-in-law, Laertes. By day she weaves. By night she pulls out the threads she has woven during the day.
The sophron of Penelope matches that of her husband.
Odysseus is outraged but not reckless. He plans, then sets his plan in motion. He reveals himself to his son, Telemachus, and to his trusted servant, Eumaeus; working stealthily together they lock the suiters inside the throne room and kill every one of them.
Odysseus - a hero of clever guile outwits the Sirens by having himself bound to the mast of his ship.
The sophron of Odysseus saved the innocent and killed only the guilty.
Many confuse reckless bravery for courage, and intelligence for wisdom
They’re wrong.
If you’re not afraid, you aren’t brave, you’re stupid. Hemingway defined courage as grace under fire. The courageous do what needs to be done, even when terrified. Foolish bravado leaps heedlessly in, even when thinking before acting would be more effective.
Intelligence is about learning quickly and retaining what you’ve learned. Wisdom, like sophron, is about putting to best use what you already know.
Years ago I subscribed briefly to a newsletter put out by the MENSA Society. I was underwhelmed by the content. The MENSA writers proposed many ideas that common sense would immediately reject as absurd. They presented their nonsense with great self-assurance. Years of being told how bright they were had apparently dulled their capacity for self-doubt.
Self-doubt, along with moral probity is the beginning
of wisdom.
The Greek idea of sophron did not include moral probity.
It wasn’t wisdom, but it was a start.
I should prefer sophron over valor. Which is to say I should prefer good sense over reckless courage. That’s what I should do, yet I don’t, quite. I imagine many people feel the same. There is a quality in fierce direct action that demands respect even when the result is avoidable tragedy. It’s a human response. We admire sophron, we respect valor
The conflicting values of Achilles and Odysseus are with us still.
The 1952 film The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance turns valor and sophron inside out. The mild thoughtful stranger Ransom Stoddard, in the climactic scene of the movie, acts as valorously as Achilles. The rough violent rancher Tom Doniphon, in that same scene, acts with all the sophron of Odysseus. The monster, Liberty Valance stays in character throughout.
Prodded by the savagery of Liberty Valance, and incensed by the hapless timidity of Shinbone citizens, Ransom Stoddard takes gun in hand for the first time in his life and confronts Liberty Valance. No one doubts a tragic outcome. They watch and await his death.
Tom Doniphon watches too, with rifle in hand, from the darkness of a nearby alley. He shoots at the exact same time as Stoddard and Valance. Valance falls dead. The thunder of the gunfire disguises the fact that three shots were fired, not two.
The people of Shinbone assume Ransom Stoddard has killed Liberty Valance.
Stoddard’s years of heroic fame eventually results in his election to the position of the former territory’s first U.S. Senator.
Stoddard believes he killed Liberty Valance.
Tom Doniphon never says otherwise.
Maxwell Scott, a local newsman is one of only a few people who know the truth. When asked for the truth he says, ”When the truth becomes legend, print the legend”.
Thus ends the closest approximation to Greek Tragedy ever produced in Hollywood.
Dorothy Marie Johnson wrote the original story. I don’t know if she intended metaphor in the names she chose for the main characters, but I can imagine it. Ransom Stoddard as the man who risked his life to deliver a town held for ransom. Liberty Valance as the man who misuses his liberty by terrorizing others. Tom Doniphon as the man of decisive action who solved the problem of Liberty Valance with a single bullet.
Google says the word doniphon is of African origin and means leader. If you think of a leader as a decision-maker the name is appropriate.
The name sounds more Greek than African to me, which would also be appropriate.
Stoddard was willing to sacrifice his life for the cause of justice, just as would Achilles. Doniphon, who was the character more like Achilles, acted more like Odysseus, spurning acclaim for the sake of accomplishing the greater good.
Upside down, morally uncertain - foolhardy valor turned useful by unseen sophron.
Is it better to be brave or cunning? Some believe Achilles’s righteous outrage personifies right-action in the world as it ought to be. Some others believe Odysseus’s cautious reasoning personifies right-action that is compelled by the world as it is.
Righteous outrage? Cautious reasoning? Some combination of both?
Most of us would say It depends on the situation.
I don’t know – my favorite Action-Hero is still Achilles.