Hour 1. The Homeric Iliad and the glory of the unseasonal heroThe meaning of kleos11. There are two key words for this hour. The first of the two is kleos, glory, fame, that which is heard; or, the poem or song that conveys glory, fame, that which is heard. We will turn to the second of the two words when we reach the paragraphs starting at 26. 12. But I start with kleos, glory. This word was used in ancient Greek poetry or song to refer to the poetry or the song that glorifies the heroes of the distant heroic past. Since the references to kleos in ancient Greek poetry and song make no distinction between poetry and song, I will simply use the word song whenever I refer to the basic meaning of kleos. 13. A specific form of poetry is epic, which is the medium of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, and a general form of song is what we know today as lyric. I will have more to say later about epic and lyric. For now I simply repeat my working definition of epic, as I formulated it in the Introduction to Homeric poetry: an expansive poem of enormous scope, composed in an old-fashioned and superbly elevated style of language, concerning the wondrous deeds of heroes. 14. The song of kleos glorifies not only the heroes of the distant past, which is a heroic age. It glorifies also the gods - as they existed in the heroic age and as they continued to exist for their worshippers at any given moment in historical time. 15. Why did the ancient Greeks glorify heroes? Partly because they worshipped not only gods but also heroes. As I noted in the Introduction, we see here a fundamental fact of ancient Greek history: the ancient Greeks practiced hero worship, to which I refer more specifically as hero cult. 16. Let us return to the main topic of this hour, as signaled by the key word kleos. This word was used in Homeric poetry to refer to both the medium and the message of the glory of heroes. The dictum of Marshall McLuhan applies here (Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, 1964): the medium is the message.

The kleos of Achilles as epic glory17. I begin by concentrating on the medium of song as marked by the word kleos. In ancient Greek song culture, kleos was the primary medium for communicating the concept of the hero, which is the primary topic (or message) of these 24 hours. 18. The main hero of the Iliad, Achilles, is quoted as saying

Hour 1 Text A = Hour 0 Text F|410 My mother Thetis, goddess with silver steps, tells me that |411 I carry the burden of two different fated ways [kres] leading to the final moment [telos] of death. |412 If I stay here and fight at the walls of the city of the Trojans, |413 then my safe homecoming [nostos] will be destroyed for me, but I will have a glory [kleos]1 that is imperishable [aphthiton].2 |414 Whereas if I go back home, returning to the dear land of my forefathers, |415 then it is my glory [kleos],3 genuine [esthlon] as it is, that will be destroyed for me, but my life force [ain] will then |416 last me a long time, and the final moment [telos] of death will not be swift in catching up with me. Iliad IX 410-4164 19. This translation, which is my own, is different from what we read in Samuel Butlers translation of the Iliad (London 1898), which is available online for free by way of the Perseus Project (and also by way of other media, such as Project Gutenberg). The original wording of Butler (1898) is as follows: My mother Thetis tells me that there are two ways in which I may meet my end. If I stay here and fight, I will not return alive but my name will live for ever: whereas if I go home my name will die, but it will be long ere death shall take me. 110. In the Sourcebook of original Greek texts (in English translation) about the ancient Greek hero (chs.harvard.edu), which as I already said is available online for free, the reader will see that I use my own translation for the verses we have just been considering, Iliad IX 410-416. In general, however, the translated text of the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey in this online Sourcebook is based on Butlers original translation (Iliad 1898 and Odyssey 1900). In editing this Sourcebook with the help of fellow teachers and researchers, my practice has been to modify the original translation wherever I see a need to substitute a more accurate translation, as in the case of Iliad IX 410-416. This practice is made possible by the fact that Butlers translation, just like all the other translations used in this online Sourcebook, is free from copyright restrictions. As I said in the Introduction, the texts of all the translations in the Sourcebook are periodically reviewed and modified, and the modifications are indicated by way of special formatting

Here, then, is the key word: kleos glory. In Hour 4, I will elaborate on the word aphthiton in the sense of imperishable. 3 So, kleos glory is evidently being contrasted with nostos homecoming. 4 |410 |411 . |412 , |413 , |414 , |415 , |416 , .1 2

designed to show the differences between the original translators version and the modified version. 111. That said, I return to Samuel Butlers translation of Iliad IX 410-416, as I quoted it in 9. It is a literary translation, not a literal one. In general, Butlers translation of the Iliad and Odyssey is literary, meant to be pleasing to the ear when read out loud. In the case of Iliad IX 410-416, Butlers translation successfully captures the general idea of what is being said by Achilles. I focus our attention on the part that I highlighted earlier: I will not return alive but my name will live for ever. In place of this literary version, the Sourcebook shows my more literal translation of the original Greek, which is contained in one single verse: then my safe homecoming [nostos] will be destroyed for me, but I will have a glory [kleos] that is imperishable [aphthiton]. Iliad IX 413 112. In what follows, I will be making a set of arguments that I will now encapsulate here in one thesis sentence: In Iliad IX 413, the main hero of the Iliad leaves as his signature the kleos of his own epic, which turns out to be the Iliad. 113. In order to make the arguments I hope to make, I will start by offering my working interpretation of this verse. From here on, I will refer to this kind of interpretation as exegesis, which is an ancient Greek term referring to a close reading of a given text. Here, then, is my exegesis, which I format as a block paragraph: Achilles has started to understand the consequences of his decision to reject the option of a safe nostos or homecoming. He is in the process of deciding to choose the other option: he will stay at Troy and continue to fight in the Trojan War. Choosing this option will result in his death, and he is starting to understand that. In the fullness of time, he will be ready to give up his life in exchange for getting a kleos, which is a poetic glory described as lasting forever. This kleos is the tale of Troy, the Iliad (the name of the poem, Iliad, means tale of Ilion; Ilion is the other name for Troy). Achilles the hero gets included in the Iliad by dying a warriors death. The consolation prize for his death is the kleos of the Iliad.

A much shorter version of epic gloryhero: 114. Having considered the kleos or epic glory of Achilles, I turn to the kleos of another

Hour 1 Text B|218 Tell me now you Muses dwelling on Olympus, |219 who was the first to come up and face Agamemnon, |220 either among the Trojans or among their famous allies? |221 It was Iphidamas son of Antenor, a man both good and great, |222 who was raised in fertile Thrace the mother of sheep. |223 Kisss in his own house raised him when he was little. |224 Kisss was his mothers father, father to Theano, the one with the fair cheeks. |225 When he [= Iphidamas] reached the stage of adolescence, which brings luminous glory, |226 he [= Kisss] wanted to keep him at home and to give him his own daughter in marriage, |227 but as soon as he [= Iphidamas] had married, he left the bride chamber and went off seeking the kleos of the Achaeans |228 along with twelve curved ships that followed him. Iliad XI 218-2285 115. This passage, Text B, resembles Text A in the way it highlights a heros obsession with the goal of dying the right way in order to be remembered forever in the kleos or glory of song. In this case, however, the hero is not a major figure of the Iliad, like Achilles. Rather, the hero here in Text B is mentioned only this one time in the Iliad, in what amounts to a short story embedded inside the overall story of the Iliad. 116. To distinguish the story of the Iliad from such short stories that exist inside the story of the Iliad, I will as a rule refer to the Iliad as the Narrative, with an upper-case N, and to the stories inside the Iliad as narratives, with lower-case n. Such narratives are micro-narratives in comparison to the macro-Narrative that is the Iliad. Also, I will as a rule use the word Narrator in referring to Homer, whom I have already described as a culture hero venerated by the ancient Greeks as the ultimate singer of the Iliad and Odyssey. 117. In order to appreciate the poetic artistry that produced the micro-narrative that we have just read in Text B, we must consider the artistic device of compression in the traditional media of ancient Greek songmaking. This device of compression is to be contrasted with the device of expansion. Whereas expansion produces macro-narratives, such as the monumental composition of the Iliad itself, compression produces micro-narratives, such as the story-within-a-story that we are now considering.6 In many ways, a trailer in todays |218 |219 |220 . |221 |222 |223 |224 , |225 , |226 , |227 |228 , . 6 More on expansion and compression in HQ 76-77.5

culture of film-making is produced by techniques of compression that resemble the techniques used in producing such micro-narratives in ancient Greek songmaking. 118. I concentrate on the next-to-last verse of this micronarrative: but as soon as he had married, he left the bride chamber and went off seeking the kleos of the Achaeans Iliad XI 227 119. This micro-narrative is about a hero who decides to interrupt his honeymoon to go to Troy to fight on the side of the Trojans against the Achaeans. These Achaeans, as we saw in the Introduction, are the Greeks of the heroic age. So, now, this hero has just been killed in battle. Why did he give up his life, a life of newlywed bliss, just to fight and die at Troy? The Narrator of the macro-Narrative gives the answer to this question: this hero did it in order to get included in the kleos or epic glory of the Greek song culture. He was seeking the kleos of the Achaeans. This kleos is the macro-Narrative of the Iliad. 120. We see here a hero getting included in the Iliad by dying a warriors death. To that extent, he is like the major hero Achilles, whose death is the core theme of the Iliad. But this minor hero, Iphidamas, dies for just a bit part. By contrast, Achilles will die for the lead part.

The immortalizing power of kleos as epic glory121. So, why is the kleos of the Achaeans so important that you are ready to die for it not only if you are Achilles, the best of the Achaeans, but even if you are not an Achaean, as in the case of our bit player Iphidamas? The answer has to do with the immortalizing power of kleos as epic glory, which as we have seen is described as aphthiton, imperishable, in Iliad IX 413. Achilles will chose the glory of epic song, which is a thing of art, over his own life, which is a thing of nature. The thing of art is destined to last forever, while his own life, as a thing of nature, is destined for death. 122. In the culture represented by the heroes of the Iliad, the distinction between art and nature, between the artificial and the natural, is not the same as in our modern cultures. Their culture was a song culture, as I have described it earlier. In our modern cultures, artificial implies unreal while natural implies real. In a song culture, by contrast, the artificial can be just as real as the natural, since the words of an artificial song can be just as real as the words of natural speech in a real-life experience. In a song culture, the song can be just as real as life itself. 123. In ancient Greek song culture, the tale or story of the Iliad was felt to be not only real but also true. As we will see in later hours, the Homeric Iliad was felt to convey the ultimate truth-values of the ancient Greek song culture.

124. Because we as users of the English language have a different cultural perspective on the words tale or story, which for us imply fiction and are therefore not expected to be true, I have also been using the more neutral word narrative in referring to the tale or story of the Iliad and other such tales or stories.7 125. As I have been arguing, the epic macro-Narrative of the Iliad is just as real to its heroes as their very own lives are real to them. For Achilles, the major hero of the Iliad, the song of kleos is just as real as his very own life is real to him. The infinite time of the artificial song, the kleos aphthiton or imperishable glory at Iliad IX 413, is just as real to him as the finite time of his natural life.

The meaning of hr126. The very idea of such a coexistence between infinite time and finite time brings me to the second key word for this hour. It is hr (plural hrai), season, seasonality, the right time, the perfect time. This word hr stood for natural time in a natural life, in a natural lifecycle. The English word hour is derived from ancient Greek hr. Relevant are such expressions in English as The hour is near. 127. The goddess of hr (plural hrai) was Hr (the two forms hr and Hr are linguistically related to each other). She was the goddess of seasons, in charge of making everything happen on time, happen in season, and happen in a timely way. 128. Related to these two words hr and Hr is hrs (singular) / hres (plural), meaning hero. As we will see, the precise moment when everything comes together for the hero is the moment of death. The hero is on time at the hr or time of death. Before death and in fact during their whole lifetime, however, heroes are not on time: as we will see, they are unseasonal. 129. In Text A, we have seen Achilles thinking about his future death as glorified by the medium of kleos. In a sense, we see him scripting his death. And this scripting is all about timing. The timing of heroic death is all-important for the hero.

The need for heroes to script their own death130. Here I return to a point I made earlier: in a song culture, the song can be just as real as life itself. To experience song in a song culture is to experience a real-life experience. But there is a paradox here, as we will see: for the Greek hero, the ultimate real-life experience is not life but death. In some situations, as we will also see in later hours, death can even become an alternative to sex. So, death must be a defining moment of reality for the hero, and A modern attempt to capture a sense of the trueness of song is a poem by Wallace Stevens, Peter Quince at the Clavier (1915).7

it must not be feared but welcomed, since the hero must ultimately achieve the perfect moment of a perfect death. And such a perfect moment must be recorded in song, which brings kleos or glory. So, heroes feel a need to script their own death with their dying words. 131. We find an example in Aeschylus Agamemnon 1444-1445, a passage we will encounter in Hour 16.8 In that passage, we will read the words of the last song of sorrow sung by Cassandra, one of the most engaging female heroes in the ancient texts we read. 132. In ancient Greek traditions, a heros dying words can be pictured as a swan song. According to such traditions, the swan sings its most beautiful song at the moment of its death. We will consider this myth in more detail toward the end of this book, when we read Platos Phaedo: in that work, Socrates talks about the concept of the swan song at the moment of his own death by hemlock. What Socrates is quoted as saying in the Phaedo, as we will see, turns out to be his own swan song. 133. I see a point of comparison in modern popular culture. The example I have in mind comes from the film Bladerunner, directed by Ridley Scott (1982), based on the science fiction novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (1968). In particular, I have in mind the moment when Roy Blatty, an artificial human, scripts his own death, which is meant to be natural. [[In live meetings, I show at this point a clip entitled Like tears in rain. Time to die, from Bladerunner (1982), directed by Ridley Scott. I draw attention here, for the first time, to a collection of film clips, with commentaries that accompany them. These film clips and commentaries can be found at chs.harvard.edu. I wrote these commentaries with the purpose of complementing some of the observations I make in The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours.]] 134. We now turn to a model for Achilles in the scripting of his own death. This model is a hero from an earlier age, who exemplifies the perfect timing of his own death. That hero is Hrakls, otherwise known by the Romanized version of his name, Hercules.

Hrakls as a model hero135. Hrakls is more than a model for Achilles. He is a model for all heroes. As we will see, his story brings to life the meaning of the ancient Greek word for hero, hrs, and the meanings of the related words for seasonality, hr, and for the goddess of seasonality herself, Hr. As we will also see, even his name tells the story: Hrakls means he who has the kleos of Hr. An English-language translation of Aeschylus Agememnon is available in the online Sourcebook (chs.harvard.edu).8

136. In the Iliad, we find an embedded micro-narrative that tells the story of Hrakls as it relates to the story of Achilles in the macro-Narrative that is the Iliad. I quote the entire micro-narrative:

Hour 1 Text C|76 Then Agamemnon, the king of men, spoke up at their meeting, |77 right there from the place where he was sitting, not even standing up in the middle of the assembly. |78 Near and dear ones, said he, Danaan [= Achaean] heroes, attendants [therapontes] of Ars! |79 It is a good thing to listen when a man stands up to speak, and it is not seemly |80 to speak in relay after him.9 It would be hard for someone to do that, even if he is a practiced speaker. |81 For how could any man in an assembly either hear anything when there is an uproar |82 or say anything? Even a public speaker who speaks clearly will be disconcerted by it. |83 What I will do is to make a declaration addressed to [Achilles] the son of Peleus. As for the rest of you |84 Argives [= Achaeans], you should understand and know well, each one of you, the words [mthos] that I say for the record. |85 By now the Achaeans have been saying these words [mthos] to me many times, |86 and they have been blaming me. But I am not responsible [aitios]. |87 No, those who are really responsible are Zeus and Fate [Moira] and the Fury [Erinys] who roams in the mist. |88 They are the ones who, at the public assembly, had put savage derangement [at] into my thinking [phrenes] |89 on that day when I myself deprived Achilles of his honorific portion [geras]. |90 But what could I do? The god is the one who brings everything to its fulfillment [teleutn]. |91 That goddess At, senior daughter of Zeus - she makes everyone veer off-course [asthai], |92 that disastrous one [oulomen], the one who has delicate steps. She never makes contact with the ground of the threshold, |93 never even going near it, but instead she hovers over the heads of men, bringing harm to mortals. |94 In her harmfulness, she has incapacitated others as well [besides me], and I have in mind one person in particular. |95 Yes, once upon a time even Zeus veered offcourse [asthai], who is said to be the best |96 among men and gods. Even he |97 was deceived; Hr did it, with her devious ways of thinking, female that she is. |98 It happened on the day when the mighty Hrakls |99 was about to be born of Alkmene in Thebes, the city garlanded by good walls. |100 He [= Zeus], making a formal declaration [eukhesthai], spoke up at a meeting of all the gods and said: |101 hear me, all gods and all goddesses, |102 and let me say to you what the heart [thmos] in my chest tells me to say. |103 Today the goddess who presides over the pains of childbirth, Eileithuia, will help bring forth a man into the light, |104 revealing him, and he will be king over all the people who live around him. |105 He comes from an ancestral line of men who are descended from blood that comes from me. |106 Thinking devious thoughts, the goddess Hr addressed him [= Zeus]: |107 You will be mistaken, and you will not be able to make a fulfillment [telos] of the words [mthos] that you have spoken for the record. |108 But come, Olympian god, swear for me a binding oath:9

The previous speaker was Achilles.

|109 swear that he will really be king over all the people who live around him, |110 I mean, the one who on this day shall fall to the ground between the legs of a woman |111 who is descended from men who come from your line of ancestry, from blood that comes from you. |112 So she spoke. And Zeus did not at all notice [noen] her devious thinking, |113 but he swore a great oath. And right then and there, he veered off-course [asthai] in a big way. |114 Meanwhile, Hr sped off, leaving the ridges of Olympus behind, |115 and swiftly she reached Achaean Argos. She knew that she would find there |116 the strong wife of Sthenelos son of Perseus. |117 She was pregnant with a dear son, and she was in her sixth10 month. |118 And she brought him forth into the light, even though he was still premature in his months. |119 Meanwhile she put a pause on the time of delivery for Alkmene, holding back the divine powers of labor, the Eileithuiai. |120 And then she herself went to tell the news to Zeus the son of Kronos, saying: |121 Zeus the father, you with the gleaming thunderbolt, I will put a word into your thoughts: |122 there has just been born a man, a noble one, who will be king over the Argives. |123 He is Eurystheus son of Sthenelos son of Perseus. |124 He is from your line of ancestry, and it is not unseemly for him to be king over the Argives. |125 So she spoke, and he was struck in his mind [phrn] with a sharp sorrow [akhos]. |126 And right away he grabbed the goddess At by the head - that head covered with luxuriant curls - |127 since he was angry in his thinking [phrenes], and he swore a binding oath |128 that never will she come to Olympus and to the starry sky |129 never again will she come back, that goddess At, who makes everyone veer off-course [asthai]. |130 And so saying he threw her down from the starry sky, |131 having whirled her around in his hand. And then she [= At] came to the fields where mortals live and work. |132 He [= Zeus] always mourned the fact that she ever existed, every time he saw how his own dear son |133 was having one of his degrading Labors [thloi] to work on. |134 So also I [= Agamemnon], while the great Hector, the one with the gleaming helmet, |135 was destroying the Argives [= Achaeans] at the sterns of the beached ships, |136 was not able to keep out of my mind the veering [at] I experienced once I veered off-course [asthai]. |137 But since I did veer offcourse [asthai] and since Zeus took away from me my thinking, |138 I now want to make amends, and to give untold amounts of compensation. Iliad XIX 76-13811

In the original Greek, with its inclusive counting system (which has no concept of zero), the numbering is seventh. 11 |76 |77 , |78 |79 , |80 . |81 |82 ; . |83 |84 , . |85 10

Before I proceed with my argumentation, I have to pause in order to give a commentary on details in the text that will not be obvious to someone who has read it for the first time ever.

Commentary on Hour 1 Text C- Verses 76-82. Agamemnon, who is the high king among all the kings of the Achaean warriors participating in the war at Troy, is speaking here in a public assembly of the Achaeans. Strangely, he speaks to his fellow warriors while remaining in a seated position |86 , |87 , |88 , |89 . |90 ; . |91 , , |92 |93 , |94 - . |95 , |96 |97 , |98 |99 . |100 |101 , |102 . |103 |104 , , |105 . |106 |107 , . |108 , |109 |110 |111 . |112 , |113 , . |114 , |115 , |116 . |117 , |118 , |119 , . |120 |121 |122 |123 |124 . |125 , |126 |127 , |128 |129 , . |130 |131 . |132 |133 . |134 , |135 , |136 . |137 , |138 , .

(77), saying that it is a good thing to listen to a man who speaks in a standing position and that it is hard for even a good speaker to hupoballein12 him (80). So, what does this mean? Achilles had just spoken to the assembly at verses 5673, and verse 55 makes it explicit that he was standing.13 In the Greek-English dictionary of Liddell, Scott, and Jones (LSJ), hupoballein is interpreted as interrupt in the context of verse 80 here. A related context is the adverb hupobldn14 at Iliad I 292, where Achilles is responding to Agamemnon in the course of their famous quarrel. Some translate that adverb as interruptingly.15 Instead, I interpret hupoballein and hupobldn as speak in relay [after someone] and speaking in relay respectively, and I argue that the concept of relay speaking is a characteristic of competitive speech-making.16 As Richard Martin has shown, the Iliad can dramatize Agamemnon and Achilles in the act of competing with each other as speakers, not only as warriors and leaders, and Achilles is consistently portrayed as the better speaker by far.17 At Iliad I 292, where I interpret hupobldn as speaking in relay, Achilles engages in verbal combat with Agamemnon not so much by way of interrupting but by picking up the train of thought exactly where his opponent left off - and out-performing him in the process. So, here at Iliad XIX 80, Agamemnon backs off from verbal combat with Achilles, using as an excuse the fact that he is wounded: I cant stand up, and therefore I cant compete by picking up the train of thought where Achilles left off - and therefore I cant out-perform him (and perhaps I dont anymore have the stomach even to try to do so). The successful performer remains standing, and the unsuccessful performer fails to stand up and compete by taking his turn, choosing instead to sit it out. He will still speak to Achilles, but he will speak without offering any more competition.18 - Verse 83. Instead of competing with Achilles as a public speaker, Agamemnon says that all he wants to do now is to make Achilles an offer. - Verses 83-84. Agamemnon says that he will say a mthos (84, 85). As Richard Martin has shown, this word as used in Homeric poetry means something said for the record; mthos is a speech-act indicating authority, performed at length, usually in public, with a focus on full attention to every detail.19 Another example of mthos occurs at verse 107, where it . For more on this contrast between the seated Agamemnon and the standing Achilles, see Elmer 2013:127. 14 . 15 Details in PR 20. 16 PR 21-22. 17 Martin 1989:117; also 63, 6970, 98, 113, 117, 119, 133, 202, 219, 223, 228. 18 PR 21. 19 Martin 1989:12.12 13

is Zeus who says something for the record. Among the sub-categories of the kinds of things that are said for the record are stories that we call myths. In Homeric terms, any story that is called a mthos is genuine and true, because it is said for the record; the modern derivative myth has obviously veered from this meaning.20 - Verses 85-86. According to Agamemnon, the myth about Hrakls has been used against him by the Achaeans. But he will now use the same myth to excuse himself. - Verses 86-87. The kind of excuse that Agamemnon uses - that he is not personally aitios, responsible, because the gods caused him to experience at, derangement - is explored at length in Greek tragedy. We will see it most clearly in a tragedy of Aeschylus, the Agamemnon, as analyzed in Hour 16. - Verse 88. The word at, derangement, is both a passive experience, as described here by Agamemnon, and an active force that is personified as the goddess At, as we see later at verse 91 and following. - Verse 91. In Homeric poetry, the word at, derangement, is perceived as a noun derived from the verb asthai, veer off-course.21 - Verse 95. Once again, asthai, veer off-course, is used as the verb of at, derangement. - Verse 105. The wording of Zeus hides the fact that Hrakls was fathered directly by him. - Verse 111. The wording of Hr hides the fact that she is speaking about the mother-to-be of Eurystheus, and that this woman is the wife of the hero Sthenelos, who is the son of the hero Perseus, who in turn was fathered directly by Zeus. Later, at verses 116 and 123, the identity of this woman is revealed. For now, however, Zeus is being deceived into thinking that Hr is speaking about the mother-to-be of Hrakls. - Verse 113. Once again, asthai, veer off-course, is used as the verb of at derangement. - Verses 136-137. Once again, asthai, veer off-course, is used as the verb of at, derangement. Now that this commentary is in place, I can return to my line of argumentation. 137. In the passage we have just read, Text C, the high king Agamemnon is telling the story about Hrakls and his inferior cousin Eurystheus. The goddess Hr accelerated the birth of Eurystheus and retarded the birth of Hrakls, so that Eurystheus the inferior hero became king, entitled to give commands to the superior hero Hrakls. As we see in the Herakles of Euripides, Hrakls qualifies as the supreme hero of them all, the aristos or best of20 21

HQ 119-125, 127-133, 152. Extensive commentary on the meaning of at in PH 242-243 = 841-42.

all humans (verse 150; see also verses 183, 208, 1306).22 Still, the heroic superiority of Hrakls is trumped by the social superiority of Eurystheus, who is entitled by seniority in birth to become the high king and to give orders to Hrakls. Similarly, the heroic superiority of Achilles is trumped by the social superiority of Agamemnon at the beginning of the Iliad. 138. The twist in this story told by Agamemnon, in micro-narrative form, is made clear by the macro-Narrative of the story that is the Iliad. In terms of Agamemnons micro-narrative, the point of his story is that At the goddess of derangement made it possible for Zeus himself to make a mistake in the story about Hrakls, just as this same goddess At made it possible for Agamemnon to make a mistake in the story of the Iliad. In terms of the macro-Narrative of the Iliad, however, the parallel extends much further: the mistake in the story about Hrakls and Eurystheus is that the hero who was superior as a hero became socially inferior, and that is also the mistake in the story about Achilles and Agamemnon as narrated in the overall Iliad: Achilles is superior to Agamemnon as a hero, but he is socially inferior to him, and that is why Agamemnon seemed to get away with the mistake of asserting his social superiority at the expense of Achilles. Like Hrakls, who is constrained by the social superiority of Eurystheus and follows his commands in performing thloi, labors (XIX 133), so also Achilles is constrained by the social superiority of Agamemnon in offering no physical resistance to the taking of the young woman Briseis, his war prize, by the inferior hero. 139. The performance of thloi, labors, by Hrakls is mentioned in passing by this micro-narrative in the Iliad (XIX 133). As we are about to see from other sources, the Labors of Hrakls lead to the kleos, glory, that Hrakls earns as a hero, and these labors would never have been performed if Hr, the goddess of seasons, had not made Hrakls the hero unseasonal by being born after rather than before his inferior cousin. So, Hrakls owes the kleos that he earns from his Labors to Hr.

The Labors of Hrakls140. There are many different kinds of Labors performed by Hrakls, as we see from an extensive retelling by Diodorus of Sicily (4.8-4.39). The work of this author, who lived in the first century BCE, is not part of our reading list of ancient texts, as contained in the Sourcebook, and so I need to summarize his narrative here in order to highlight some essential features of the overall story of Hrakls. 141. One of the Labors of Hrakls, as we see from Diodorus, was the foundation of the athletic festival of the Olympics. The story as retold by Diodorus (4.14.1-2) says that Hrakls not only founded this major festival: he also competed in every athletic event on the prototypical occasion of the first Olympics. On that occasion, he won first prize in every An English-language translation of Euripides Herakles is available in the online Sourcebook (chs.harvard.edu).22

Olympic event. This tradition about Hrakls is the perfect illustration of a fundamental connection between the labor of a hero and the competition of an athlete at athletic events like the Olympics. As we can see when we read Hour 8b, the heros labor and the athletes competition are the same thing, from the standpoint of ancient Greek concepts of the hero. The Greek word for the heros labor and for the athletes competition is the same: thlos. Our English word athlete is a borrowing from the Greek word thlts, which is derived from thlos. 142. Before we consider further Labors performed by Hrakls, I offer a paraphrase of the beginning of the story of these Labors as narrated by Diodorus (4.9.2-4.9.5): The supreme god and king of gods, Zeus, impregnates Alkmene, a mortal woman (4.9.2). The wife of Zeus, the goddess Hr, is jealous; she decides to intervene in the life of the hero who is about to be born, Hrakls (4.9.4). If this hero had been born on schedule, on time, in time, he would have been the supreme king of his time; but Hr makes sure that Hrakls is born not on schedule, not on time, not in time. Hrakls inferior cousin, Eurystheus, is born ahead of him and thus is fated to become king instead of Hrakls (4.9.4-5). During all of Hrakls lifetime, Eurystheus persecutes him directly; Hr persecutes him indirectly. The superior hero has to spend his entire lifespan obeying the orders of the inferior king (4.9.5). Hrakls follows up on each one of the orders, and his accomplishments in the process add up to the Labors of Hrakls. 143. In the classical period, the Labors of Hrakls were represented most famously in a set of relief sculptures that decorated the two longitudinal sides of the Temple of Zeus in Olympia, built in the fifth century BCE. These relief sculptures, the technical term for which is metopes, focused on a canonical number of twelve Labors performed by Hrakls. Diodorus narrates all these Twelve Labors (4.11.3-4.26.4): - Hrakls kills the Nemean Lion (4.11.3-4) - Hrakls kills the Lernaean Hydra (4.11.5-6) - Hrakls kills the Erymanthian Boar (4.12.1-2) - Hrakls hunts down the Hind with the Golden Horn (4.13.1) - Hrakls clears the Stymphalian Marsh of the noxious birds that infested it (4.13.2) - Hrakls clears the manure from the Augean Stables (4.13.3) - Hrakls captures the Cretan Bull alive and brings it to the Peloponnesus (4.13.4) - Hrakls corrals the Horses of Diomedes, eaters of human flesh (4.15.3-4) - Hrakls captures the waistband or girdle of the Amazon Hippolyte (4.16.1-4) - Hrakls rustles the Cattle of Geryon (4.17.1-2)

- Hrakls descends to Hds and brings up Cerberus the Hound of Hds from the zone of darkness to the zone of light and life (4.26.1) - Hrakls gathers the Golden Apples of the Hesperides (4.26.2-4). 144. In the catalogue of the Labors of Hrakls as sung and danced in praise of the hero by the chorus in the tragedy by Euripides entitled the Herakles (lines 348-440), the last of these Labors to be mentioned is the descent of Hrakls to Hds (425-435); in the imagery of Euripides, and elsewhere in Greek poetry and song as we will see later on, the experience of going into Hds is explicitly the experience of dying, and the experience of coming back out of Hds is implicitly the experience of resurrection (lines 143-146).

Hrakls and the meaning of kleos145. Hrakls heroic deeds in performing these Labors and many others are the raw material for the heroic song, kleos, that is sung about him. The connection of the name of Hrakls with these deeds and with the medium of kleos that glorifies these deeds is made explicit in the Herakles of Euripides (lines 271, 1335, 1370). This connection of the heros name with these deeds of kleos is also made explicit by Diodorus (1.24.4 and 4.10.1).23 And, as I have already noted, Hrakls owes the kleos that he earns from his Labors to Hr. That is how he gets his name Hrakls, which means he who has the kleos of Hr.24 The goddess of being on time makes sure that the hero should start off his lifespan by being not on time and that he should go through life by trying to catch up - and never quite managing to do so until the very end. Hrakls gets all caught up only at the final moment of his life, at the moment of death. 146. I continue here my paraphrase of Diodorus (4.38.1-4.39.3): At the final moment of Hrakls heroic lifespan, he experiences the most painful death imaginable, climaxed by burning to death. This form of death is an ultimate test of the nervous system, by ancient Greek heroic standards. Here is how it happens. Hrakls is fatally poisoned when his skin makes contact with the semen of a dying Centaur. The estranged wife of Hrakls, Deianeira, had preserved this poisonous substance in a vial, and she smears it on an undergarment called a khiton that she sends to Hrakls in a vain attempt to regain his affections; the hero had asked for a cloak and a khiton to be sent to him so that he could perform a sacrifice to Zeus after capturing Iole, a younger woman Diodorus 1.24.4 attributes this information to Matris of Thebes FGH 39 F 2; in 4.10.1, Diodorus actually retells the version attributed to Matris. 24 On the linguistic validity of the etymology of his name, see HQ 48n79. The problem of the short a in the middle of the form Hrkls can best be addressed by comparing the short a in the middle of the form Alkthoos, the name of a hero of Megara (as in Theognis 774) who is closely related thematically to Hrakls. I owe this solution to Alexander Nikolaev.23

whom he now intends to marry (4.38.1-2). Hrakls gets dressed for the sacrifice and puts on the khiton. The consequences are fatal. Once the skin of Hrakls makes contact with the poison smeared on the undergarment, he starts burning up on the inside as the poison rapidly pervades his body from the outside. The pain is excruciating, and Hrakls knows he is doomed. He arranges with the people of Trachis to have them build for him a funeral pyre on the peak of Mount Oeta, and then he climbs up on top of the funeral pyre (4.38.3-4). He yearns to be put out of his misery, ready to die and be consumed by the fires of the funeral pyre; he calls on his friend Philoktetes to light his pyre (4.38.4).25 At that precise moment of agonizing death, a flaming thunderbolt from his father Zeus strikes him. He goes up in flames, in a spectacular explosion of fire (4.38.4-5). In the aftermath, those who attended the primal scene find no physical trace of Hrakls, not even bones (4.38.5). They go home to Trachis, but Menoitios, the father of Patroklos, will later establish a hero cult for Hrakls at Opous, and the Thebans have a similar hero cult for him (4.38.1). Others, however, especially the Athenians, worship Hrakls not as a hero but as a god (4.39.1). The rationale for this alternative custom is given by the continuation of the myth as retold by Diodorus: at the moment of his death, Hrakls regains consciousness and finds himself on the top of Mount Olympus, in the company of the gods (4.39.2-3). He has awakened to find himself immortalized. He is then adopted by the theoi, gods, on Mount Olympus as one of their own (the technical Greek term is apotheosis). Hr now changes identities - from Hrakls stepmother to Hrakls mother (4.39.2). The procedure is specified by Diodorus, and I translate literally (4.39.2): Hr got into her bed and drew Hrakls close to her body; then she ejected him through her clothes to the ground, re-enacting [= making mmsis of] genuine birth (tn de teknsin genesthai phasi toiautn: tn Hran anabasan epi klinn kai ton Hraklea proslabomenn pros to sma dia tn endumatn apheinai pros tn gn, mimoumenn tn althinn genesin).26 147. Birth by Hr is the heros rebirth, a birth into immortality.27 Death by lightning is the key to this rebirth: the thunderbolt of Zeus, so prominently featured in the poetry of cosmogony and anthropogony, simultaneously destroys and regenerates: Elysium, one of many different names given to an imagined paradisiacal place of immortalization for heroes after death, is related to the word en-lusion, which designates a place struck by lightning - a place made sacred by contact with the thunderbolt of Zeus.28 As I said in the Introduction to Thinking of Jim Morrisons 1966 recording of Light my fire, I recall these words: Try now we can only lose / And our love become a funeral pyre / Come on baby, light my fire / Come on baby, light my fire / Try to set the night on fire, yeah ... . 26 In Hour 8e, I will analyze the meaning of mmsis as re-enactment. 27 This formulation comes from the analysis in EH 75, and the rest of my paragraph here draws further on that analysis. 28 GM 140-142.25

the book (06), the hero can be immortalized, but the fundamental painful fact remains: the hero is not by nature immortal. 148. By now we can see that the name Hrakls, he who has the glory [kleos] of Hr, marks both the medium and the message of the hero. But when we first consider the meaning of the name of Hrakls, our first impression is that this name is illogical: it seems to us strange that Hrakls should be named after Hr - that his poetic glory or kleos should depend on Hr. After all, Hrakls is persecuted by Hr throughout his heroic lifespan. And yet, without this unseasonality, without the disequilibrium brought about by the persecution of Hr, Hrakls would never have achieved the equilibrium of immortality and the kleos or glory that makes his achievements live forever in song.

Hrakls and the idea of the hero149. At the core of the narratives about Hrakls is the meaning of hrs, hero, as a cognate of Hr, the goddess of seasonality and equilibrium, and of hr, a noun that actually means seasonality in the context of designating hero cult, as in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter 265.29 The decisive verse that I cite here from Homeric Hymn to Demeter will be quoted in Hour 8 Text C and analyzed in Hour 820-21. The unseasonality of the hrs in mortal life leads to the telos or fulfillment of hr, seasonality, in immortal life, which is achieved in the setting of hero cult, as we will see in Hour 1311-22. Such a concept of telos as fulfillment is also expressed by an adjectival derivative of telos, which is teleia, used as a cult epithet that conventionally describes the goddess Hr.30 That is, Hr is the goddess of telos in the sense of fulfillment, as we will see in Hour 1318. 150. Overall, the narratives about Hrakls fit neatly into a model of the hero as I outline it in a general article I have published on the topic of the epic hero.31 I offer here a shortened version of the outline that I develop there. In terms of that outline, there are three characteristics of the hero: 1. The hero is unseasonal. 2. The hero is extreme - positively (for example, best in whatever category) or negatively (the negative aspect can be a function of the heros unseasonality). 3. The hero is antagonistic toward the god who seems to be most like the hero; antagonism does not rule out an element of attraction - often a fatal attraction - which is played out in a variety of ways. PH 140n27 = 57; GM 136. See also Davidson 1980 and 2013a:89-90. This cult epithet for Hr, teleia, is attested for example in Aristophanes Women at the Thesmophoria 973. 31 EH 105-110.29 30

151. All three characteristics converge in the figure of the hero Hrakls: 1. He is made unseasonal by Hr. 2. His unseasonality makes it possible for him to perform his extraordinary Labors. He also commits some deeds that are morally questionable: for example, he destroys the city of Iole and kills the brothers of this woman in order to capture her as his bride - even though he is already married to Deianeira (Diodorus of Sicily 4.37.5). 3. He is antagonistic with Hr throughout his lifespan, but he becomes reconciled with her through death: as we have seen, the hero becomes the virtual son of Hr by being reborn from her. As the heros name makes clear, he owes his heroic identity to his kleos and, ultimately, to Hr. A parallel is the antagonism of Juno, the Roman equivalent of Hr, toward the hero Aeneas in Virgils Aeneid. 152. Before we go on, I must highlight the fact that the story of Hrakls includes the committing of deeds that are morally questionable. It is essential to keep in mind that whenever heroes commit deeds that violate moral codes, such deeds are not condoned by the heroic narrative. As we will see later, in Hours 6 7 8, 18, the pollution of a hero in myth is relevant to the worship of that hero in ritual. 153. That said, I now proceed with paraphrases of two further details about the life of Hrakls: - Hr finds an abandoned baby, who happens to be Hrakls. She takes a fancy to the baby and breast-feeds it, but the baby bites her. This part of the narrative is reported by Diodorus of Sicily (4.9.6). Another part of the narrative is reported elsewhere: the breastfeeding of Hrakls by Hr goes awry and results in a cosmic spilling of milk, a galaxy (Greek galakt- means milk) - that is, the Milky Way ([Eratosthenes] Katasterismoi 3.44; Hyginus Astronomica 2.43; Achilles Astronomica 24). - Hrakls mortal mother, Alkmene, conceives another son by her mortal husband, Amphitryon, on the same night when she conceives her son Hrakls by her immortal paramour, Zeus (Apollodorus Library 2.4.8). This twin, Iphikles, is mortal. The other twin, Hrakls, is mortal only on his mothers side. I do not say half-mortal or half-divine in this case, and I will give my reasons when we reach Hour 6.

Achilles and the idea of the hero154. Now that I have outlined the basics of the narratives about Hrakls, I turn to the basics about Achilles. We find in the figure of Achilles the same three heroic characteristics that we found in figure of Hrakls:

1. He is unseasonal: in Iliad XXIV 540, Achilles is explicitly described as pan-a-(h)r-ios, the most unseasonal of them all.32 His unseasonality is a major cause of his grief, which makes him a man of constant sorrow. In using this phrase, I have in mind here the title of a traditional American folk song, first recorded by Dick Burnett, a partially blind fiddler from Kentucky. The grief over the unseasonality of Achilles is best expressed by the heros mother Thetis in Iliad XVIII 54-62, a passage that will figure prominently in Hour 423. 2. He is extreme, mostly in a positive sense, since he is best in many categories, and best of the Achaeans in the Homeric Iliad; occasionally, however, he is extreme in a negative sense, as in his moments of martial fury. In Hour 6, I will have more to say about such martial fury, otherwise known as warp spasm. 3. He is antagonistic to the god Apollo, to whom he bears an uncanny resemblance. Again in Hour 6, I will have more to say about the antagonism of Apollo with the hero Achilles.

Achilles and the meaning of kleos155. There is another important parallel between Hrakls and Achilles: the use of the word kleos, glory, in identifying Hrakls as a hero is relevant to the fact that the same word is used in identifying Achilles as an epic hero in the Homeric Iliad. In the Iliad, kleos designates not only glory but also, more specifically, the glory of the hero as conferred by epic. As we have seen in Hour 1 Text A, Iliad IX 413, Achilles chooses kleos over life itself, and he owes his heroic identity to this kleos.33 156. So, we end up where we started, with the hero Achilles. He chooses kleos over life itself, and he owes his heroic identity to this kleos. He achieves the major goal of the hero: to have his identity put permanently on record through kleos. For us, a common way to express this goal is to say: youll go down in history. For the earliest periods of ancient Greece, the equivalent of this kind of history is kleos. 157. In J. D. Salingers Catcher in the Rye (1951), Holden Caulfield is given this lesson by the teacher: The mark of the immature man is that he wants to die nobly for a cause, while the mark of a mature man is that he wants to live humbly for one. 158. My guess is that Achilles would respond negatively to such a teaching: in that case, I would rather be immature than mature. Still, as we will see, Achilles will achieve a maturity, a seasonality, at the moment in the Iliad when he comes to terms with his own impending heroic death.

32 33

HQ 48. HR 39-48.

159. I close for now by quoting what the teacher goes on to say in Salingers narrative: Many, many men have been just as troubled morally and spiritually as you are right now. Happily, some of them kept records of their troubles. Youll learn from them if you want to. Its a beautiful reciprocal arrangement. And it isnt education. Its history. Its poetry.34

34

The emphasis is mine.