Indic hero Karna, who declares outright, ‘I choose fame on earth even at the
cost of my life. The famous man attains to heaven, the inglorious man
perishes’ (MBh. 3. 284. 31), and on another occasion ‘regarding fame as
supreme in the world, I shall slay them or again, slain by the foe in battle,
sleep’ (7. 2. 15).
The Narts of the Caucasus were of the same persuasion. Having conquered
all their enemies on earth, they resolved to challenge God himself. God sent a
swallow with a message: ‘If I defeat you, which do you prefer? Shall I wipe
your race out completely, or do you want some descendants to remain, albeit
inferior ones?’ The Narts looked at each other and said, ‘If he is going to
destroy our race, let him do it completely!’ There were some who objected,
‘Better to have feeble descendants than none at all.’ But Uryzmæg replied,
‘No! Better to remain without descendants than to leave inferior ones. What
do you want eternal life for? We don’t need it. Let him give us eternal fame
instead!’ And all the Narts agreed with him.^93
Irish and British heroes are of a like stamp. Cathbad declares that Cú
Chulainn will be airdirc and ainmgnaid, conspicuous and known by name,
but short-lived. He replies, ‘if I can only be airdirc, I am content to live but a
single day’.^94 Later in the Táin (3296ff.) the severely wounded Cethern is
given the choice: to lie as an invalid for a year and survive, or to have strength
for just three days and three nights to attack his enemies. ‘The latter is what
Cethern chose.’ The Novantian braveheart Cynddylig from Ayrshire
had no desire for a happy little place in the world.
This he sought: the acclamation of bards across the world’s circuit,
and gold, and great horses, and mead’s intoxication. (Y Gododdin 820–2)Fame conferred and sustained by poetryIn oral societies the warrior’s long-term fame depended on the diffusion of
stories and especially poems; the best stories were generally made into poems.
Homeric singers spread the κλο of heroic doings, #ργ, qνδρ;ν τε θε;ν
τε, τα ́ τε κλεουσιν qοιδο (Od. 1. 338). Kleio is the name of one of
Hesiod’s Muses (Th. 77). Perhaps the Asopid Kleone (*Κλεf-.να), the
eponymous nymph of the town Kleonai, was originally a goddess of poetry.
For the subject to survive, the song must survive. Thus the fame of the
person celebrated becomes interlinked with the poet’s own fame. As Ibycus
advises Polycrates, ‘you will have κλο Eφθιτον, unfailing fame, κατ’
(^93) Sikojev (1985), 317 f.; a Circassian version in Colarusso (2002), 11.
(^94) Táin (I) 638–41. The Irish epithets are compounds from elements whose Greek equivalents
would be περιδρκετο and %νομα ́ γνωτο.
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