Lessons Learned From Homer

When I was eighteen a friend of mine upon discovering that we were about to read yet another passage from The Iliad, buried his head in his hands and snorted, ‘Not again.’ I kept quiet — the Greek teacher was giving us a dirty look — but I secretly agreed. Since childhood, Homer had always been there, an ever-present figure I could not escape. The Homeric hero — handsome, blond, bloodthirsty — stood in his shining armour, basking in glory, and I simply could not relate. I had no certainties about the world. I didn’t know where I was going to live in a year, how to pass my driving test, or how to understand maths. The Homeric world was absolute, and I had nothing to do with absolutes.

Then we read the conversation between Hector and Andromache from Book VI of The Iliad. Andromache begs Hector not to fight; she does not want to lose him. But Hector refuses. I realised that even Hector has little certainty about his destiny. He knows that facing Achilles will likely lead to his death and that he will probably not achieve the outcome he hopes for. Yet he must try — he must try for the people he loves, for his city, and for himself. Because if he refuses to face what he is called to do, he cannot live with the shame. He says, “I have learned to be strong always, to fight among the first of the Trojans.”

And then Hector — who, in a world like Homer’s, where being the best and remembered for centuries is the ultimate goal — takes his son Astyanax in his arms and exclaims: “Let someone one day say: he is much stronger than his father!” He is not afraid to be second best, or third, or fourth, and never loses sight of what really matters. Eighteen-year-old Carla, who saw life as a race where you have to be the fastest to win some undefined prize, had a lot to learn from Hector.

By my second year at university, I feel more stable. I finally have my license, I write essays on gender theories in Anna Karenina, and for a while, my doubts seem to quiet down. But that is when Homer returns. This time, it's the translation and analysis of Book XXII of The Iliad — the duel between Hector and Achilles. Hector has just killed Patroclus, Achilles’ best friend and alleged lover, and Achilles is beside himself with rage. He disregards the rules of war, the gods, and even mercy. After killing Hector, he desecrates his corpse, refusing to listen to anyone. He says he wants to eat him.

How foolish, I think. Does he not realise that all this hatred brings him nothing but pain? But then I experience my own deep disappointment, and suddenly, I understand Achilles. For months, I believed that holding on to my resentment would allow me to resist accepting the situation — that it could be my form of protest. But if it did no good for a hero like Achilles, how could it possibly help me? Eventually, even Achilles relents. He welcomes Priam, Hector’s grieving father, in his tent and tells him: “But away, now sit on the seat, and the sorrows / let us leave them in our souls, however afflicted: / no gain is to be found in cold weeping.”

I am now in my third year, so, trying to change things up, I turn to The Odyssey. Odysseus gets on my nerves. If he had not stopped for all his foolish side quests, his journey would have lasted less than two years instead of ten. He arrives in the land of the lotus-eaters, trusting their promises of peace and kindness, not realising it is precisely those promises (and the flowers of course) that will poison him. His companions beg him not to stay in the Cyclops’ cave, but he refuses to listen — he must see reality with his own eyes, and he almost loses his life. Then, he remains stuck for seven years on the island of Ogygia with the goddess Calypso. Every morning, he walks to the beach and weeps, convinced his situation will never change. But it does. 

Because despite everything, Odysseus always finds a way out. And eventually, I admit to myself, with a resigned sigh, that I am a little like Odysseus too — sometimes discouraged, but still moving forward. We all know how his story ends. Odysseus eventually makes it home.

So yes, read Homer — because he always reminds us that, luckily, we are also frail.

Illustration by Maya Mason