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“I doubt if men ever made a trade of heroism. In the days of Achilles, even, they delighted in big barns, and he who possessed the most valuable team was the best fellow...” - Henry David Thoreau A Fated Glory Serial killer John Wayne Gacy murdered 33 young men in cold blood during his lifetime, burying their bodies in the foundation of his own house. So, why does the American population not shower him with presents or sing songs in his memory? In Homer’s epic poem “The Odyssey,” Odysseus murders his wife’s suitors and tosses their bodies out on the street. They were some of the “best men of the Kephallenians” yet still, the citizens of Ithaka continue to revere him as their hero (Homer 356). Clearly, the Greeks’ measure of heroic stature was drastically different than that of today’s society. Although Odysseus’ reveals his immoral character throughout “The Odyssey,” something today no “hero” would do, he is still a Grecian hero because morality has no bearing on heroism in his culture. Instead it is his physical prowess, vast material wealth, and favor from Athene that culminate in a glorious homecoming, earning him such a high position of veneration. Odysseus has many great deeds to his name—primarily the defeat of the Trojans—but throughout his many wanderings, he allows his immoral character to peek through his shining, heroic veneer. When asked by Antinoös and Arete to regale them with his tales of adventure, Odysseus, without qualm, begins the story in Ilion. He explains how he “sacked their city and killed their people,/ and out of the city taking their wives and many possessions...shared them out” (Homer 138). The captivated Phaiakian audience, however, is not deterred by his savage pride, but is awestruck. Odysseus tells them of the disastrous episode on the island of the Cyclopes. He does not feel compelled to omit even Eurylochos’ sentiments that it was Oydsseus’ “recklessness” that caused his companions suffering and slaying at the hands of the monster Polyphemus (163).
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