The Hero 35
the safety of Troy. Hector wants to live a long time. Achilles would
not give up the prospect of glory for anything; Hector might be con-
tent to die a relative unknown if he could see Astyanax grow to be
a man, and be able to imagine that his dear son would someday fi ll
his father’s place as he, Hector, has fi lled Priam’s. If the Trojans
deci ded to launch an expedition to reclaim a wayward princess who
had eloped beyond the seas, it is entirely likely that Hector, tempted
as he might be with the prospect of glory, would stay home.
Northrop Frye says that part of Homer’s achievement lies in his
ability to depict an enemy of his own people, the Greeks, with full
humanity. Hector is Achilles’ antagonist, yet he is an admirable
fi gure— and not an image of Self hood at its worst. But Homer does
include an image of Self in his poem, and it is one that will travel
through time, most saliently into the work of the individual who may
be the greatest single enemy of ideals, William Shakespeare.
Early in the poem, Homer allows the ugly misshapen soldier
Thersites to cry out in front of the troops against Agamemnon.
What Achilles has been saying about the king is right, Thersites
proclaims. And there’s more. Agamemnon is nothing but a thief,
appropriating the goods that other men have fought and died to
win. After a battle, he takes all the best: he grabs a lion’s share of the
trea sure; he claims the sons of wealthy Trojans to ransom; he gets
the most alluring girls to take back to his bed. The common soldiers
ought to rebel. “Abandon him here in Troy to wallow in all his
prizes” (II, 276), Thersites says. The common soldiers should rise
up, take to their ships, and leave Agamemnon on the beach.
Thersites is ranting, but the rant is eloquent enough. To the foot
soldiers should go the spoils, to the laborers the fruit of their work.
Thersites speaks out against the presiding ideology that keeps the
princes in command. That he is ugly is not beside the point. “Bandy-
legged he was, with one foot clubbed, / both shoulders humped
together, curving over / his caved-in chest and bobbing above