Classical Mythology, 7th Edition - obinfonet: dia logou

THE TROJAN SAGA AND THE ILIAD 467
When Priam has made his appeal to Achilles and they both have had their
fill of lamentation, each remembering his sorrows, Achilles explains the ultimate
reason for human misery (24. 524-533):
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"No [human] action is without chilling grief. For thus the gods have spun out
for wretched mortals the fate of living in distress, while they live without care.
Two jars sit on the door sill of Zeus, filled with gifts that he bestows, one jar of
evils, the other of blessings. When Zeus, who delights in thunder, takes from
both and mixes the bad with the good, a human being at one time encounters
evil, and at another good. But the one to whom Zeus gives only troubles from
the jar of sorrows, this one he makes an object of abuse, to be driven by cruel
misery over the divine earth."
Achilles has finally learned through suffering true compassion. His pessimistic
view of human existence lies at the core of the Greek tragic view of life.
It is a view mirrored with sad beauty by Herodotus, as we have seen in Chapter
6, and echoed again and again by the dramatists, who delight in the splendid
fall of those who were once great and blessed. "Never count a person happy
until dead."
So Priam ransomed Hector and returned to Troy with the corpse. The Iliad
ends with the funeral of Hector, over whose body Andromache, Hecuba, and
finally Helen had poured out their lamentations. For nine days the people of
Troy mourned for Hector, whose death had made inevitable their own fate.
Achilles is not only subject to vehement passions. Alone of the Greek heroes
he knows his destiny clearly: to Odysseus' speech in the embassy he replies (9.
410^16):
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My mother, Thetis of the silver feet, has told me that two fates are carrying me
to the goal of my death. If I stay here and fight before the city of the Trojans,
then I lose my homecoming, but my glory will never fade. But if I return home
to my own dear land, then gone is my noble glory, and my life will be long.
The character of Achilles is perfectly expressed in these words. When his
horse, Xanthus, prophesies his death (19. 404^17), Achilles replies:
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Well do I know that my destiny is to die here, far from my dear father and
mother. Even so, I shall keep on. I shall not stop until I have harried the Trojans
enough with my warfare.
The Funeral of Patroclus. Apulian red-figure krater by the Darius painter, ca. 330 B.c.; height
56 in. In the central panel is the pyre with Hector's spoils (originally Achilles' armour
worn by Patroclus) on it. To its left Achilles holds a Trojan prisoner by his hair before
running him through with his sword: three other bound prisoners to the left await the
same fate. To the right of the pyre Agamemnon pours a libation. In the lower panel the
charioteer of Achilles, Automedon, prepares to drag the corpse of Hector behind the fourhorse
chariot around the tomb of Patroclus. In the upper register the old warriors, Nestor
(seated) and Phoenix, converse in a tent. (Naples, Museo Nazionale.)