The Hero 33
We know Achilles fi rst through his quarrel with Agamemnon,
when his pride has been gored. We know Hector best as a man
in the midst of his family. He is the one who loves and protects
Andromache and Astyanax and the rest of the city too, which is like
an extended family to him. Achilles speaks often of his family, and
particularly of his aged father, Peleus, whom he fears he will never
see again. But he has traded the life of the hearth for the life of the
camp; he has exchanged intimate life with a woman, like the one
Hector has with Andromache, for a life with men. His closest bonds
are with other males. His friend Patroclus may or may not be his
homosexual lover—in Homer’s text there is no evidence that he is. But
their relations are intimate and warm. Patroclus serves Achilles,
lays his fi re and cooks his food with a wife’s tenderness, yet Patro-
clus is, in his own right, an accomplished warrior. Achilles has
jettisoned the pleasures but also the tedium of life at home for a life
in the out of doors away from family and from women and children.
The hero does not stay at home. Like the saint and like the
thinker, who travels in his mind, the hero doesn’t have much pa-
tience for the domestic circle. You need to leave your father and
mo ther and follow me, Jesus says, and those who choose Soul over
Self usually choose a life in the open air, or at least a wandering life.
Domesticity means repetition, custom, and convention to the man
or woman who wants to achieve the unity of being that the Soul
State promises. The life of the home pulls the individual in too many
directions: he has multiple obligations, a multitude of tasks. The
hero and the saint want to unify their beings around one ideal only—
be it glory or compassion. (You think of many things, Jesus tells one
of his followers, but there is really only one thing.) Once one has
consecrated oneself to an ideal, home and family become irrele-
vances. Family is a point of piety in the life of the Self—it is the
basis for self- justifi cations. One must work, thrive, and get ahead— all