32 Ancient Ideals
set it down on the ground, fi ery in the sunlight,
and raising his son, he kissed him [and] tossed him in his arms.
(VI, 562–566)The boy recognizes Hector, laughs, and cries out with delight. This
is his father, the large- hearted man who adores him.
The scene dramatizes Hector’s dual nature. Hector is two men.
He is the valiant warrior who stands against the Greeks on the
plains, but he is also the man beneath the helmet, the loving pater
familias. “I’ve learned it all too well,” Hector says, “To stand up
bravely, / always to fi ght in the front ranks of Trojan soldiers, /
winning my father great glory, glory for myself ” (VI, 528–530).
Hector had to learn to be a hero. It did not come naturally to him.
(As David Mikics observes, the verb didaskein is not used in the
sense of learning warfare for Achilles or for anyone else in the poem.)
By nature, he is probably closer to being a statesman than a warrior,
a man who would in time become a just and temperate king, like
his father, Priam. He is a loving father and a loyal friend, tolerant
and generous. Helen says that there are only two men in Troy who
treat her with kindness: one is Priam, the other Hector.
Hector may not have been born to be a warrior, yet he has forged
himself into a superb one, a match for any of the Greek fi ghters with
the exception of one. Achilles is from a diff erent order of being than
Hector. Achilles is part god, the son of Thetis; Hector is entirely
mortal. Achilles may have had to acquire some of the technical arts
of war when he was very young, but he never needed to learn to be
a warrior, in the way that Hector did. The life of battle came natu-
rally to Achilles—he was made for the camp and the assault. Hector
is two men, the one who wears the helmet and the one who lives his
life without it. Achilles in his full pride is one man: Achilles might
be less menacing when he takes his helmet off , but not much.