It is like Homer's Achilles lying
first upon his face, then upon his back, placing himself in various attitudes,
and, as sick people are wont, enduring none of them for long, and using changes
as though they were remedies.
Hence men undertake aimless
wanderings, travel along distant shores, and at one time at sea, at another by
land, try to soothe that fickleness of disposition that always is dissatisfied
with the present.
The
story of Achilles is so very old, and yet it is also so very contemporary. For
all of his skill and strength, he found it quite difficult to remain steadfast
in his character.
He was
once friends with Agamemnon, but then becomes his enemy. Here he wishes to have
Briseis returned to him, and there he refuses to take her back. First he is
quite willing to fight, and then he will not fight, and then he is willing to
fight again, but for a rather different reason than before.
At one
moment he desecrates the body of Hector, and then at another moment, moved by
the words of Priam, he provides a proper burial.
Even
when Achilles has avenged the death of Patroclus, he is still restless, uneasy,
tossing back and forth. Does he even know who he truly is, or what he should
rightly want? He is never quite happy with anything that happens, and his
attention quickly turns to something else, though he is equally fiery and
indignant in all of his moods. The great hero may master others on the field of
battle, but he has very little mastery over himself.
Trying
to teach the Iliad has long been one
of my favorite endeavors, because there can sometimes come a wonderful moment
where young people no longer think of it as dusty old book, but they see all of
human greatness and folly, virtue and vice, condensed in its pages.
One student
asked hesitantly, “Is it just me, or is Achilles sort of like a rich spoiled
brat, and the only reason anyone puts up with him is that he’s also the star of
the football team, and the girls think he’s awful cute?”
“How can
one person’s vanity and pettiness cause so much grief?” wondered another.
“Do his
thoughts and feelings ever become consistent? He’s all over the place!”
bemoaned a third.
We all
know people who live that way, and at one point or another we have probably all
succumbed to such flightiness. It is here more than just an anxious
personality, but proceeds from lacking any peace of mind within. We dismiss our
friends, or cast aside our lovers, or make and break our promises with the
changing of the wind. We have consumed everything we want here, so we move on
to something new over there.
Written in 5/2011
IMAGE: Peter Paul Rubens, The Wrath of Achilles (c. 1635)
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