Unless great acts superior merit prove,
And vindicate the bount’ous powers above.
‘Tis ours, the dignity they give, to grace;
The first in valour, as the first in place.
That when with wond’ring eyes our martial bands
Behold our deeds transcending our commands,
Such, they may cry, deserve the sov’reign state,
Whom those that envy, dare not imitate!
Could all our care elude the gloomy grave,
Which claims no less the fearful than the brave,
For lust of fame I should not vainly dare
In fighting fields, nor urge thy soul to war.
But since, alas! ignoble age must come,
Disease, and death’s inexorable doom;
The life which others pay, let us bestow,
And give to fame what we to nature owe;
Brave though we fall, and honoured if we live,
Or let us glory gain, or glory give!’Sarpedon asks Glaucus why they are singled out for honours at the feast, with special
seats and the best food and drink among the Lycians, who look upon them as gods.
Why do they have the best land with orchards and wheatfields? Their social position
obliges them to lead the Lycians in fighting, so that their followers will acknowledge
that they earn their privileges by virtue of their great prowess on the battlefield. At
the same time Sarpedon says that if they could actually be like gods and avoid old
age and death, he would not urge Glaucus to join the fight where glory is gained. The
Homeric adjective ‘bringing glory’ fits the context well. Elsewhere Homer uses many
adjectives that express the grisliness of the fight. However, since they cannot escape
death in its countless forms, Sarpedon urges that they join the fight and either gain
honour for themselves or give it to others.
The heroic resolve is the conscious choice to risk a glorious death rather than
forgo glory for the sake of holding on to an insignificant life. Moreover the choice is
made wholeheartedly. Homer uses the word, charma, ‘joy’ to express the emotion
that the heroes feel as they enter the fray. Despite the foreboding he has of his own
death, Hector entering the battle is likened to a stallion who has broken loose and is
galloping off joyfully to his favourite pasture confident in his own splendour (15,
263–268). Achilles is the supreme embodiment of the hero by virtue partly of the
superior physical prowess that enables him to excel others in the fight, but even more
so by virtue of the choice he has made in being at Troy at all, for he reports that his
goddess mother Thetis had told him that he could choose between two destinies: a
16 THE GREEKS