Iliad, by Homer Hector and Essay

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Hector is valiant, and can show great anger in the thick of battle when it is necessary. But behind the walls of Troy, during times of counsel, he is able to show coolness and forthrightness. He urges Paris to fight Helen's legitimate husband Menelaus alone, which would have prevented more people from dying if Paris had not acted like a coward and fought unethically in the one-on-one battle. Hector regrets that Helen ever came to Troy, rather than delights in the fact that the war may bring him glory. And most importantly of all, even though he has a right to be very angry at Paris for bringing Helen to Troy in the first place, he never moves against Paris in a rage. Achilles, in contrast, nearly kills Agamemnon, resolving to "thrust through the ranks and kill Agamemnon now" when he is slighted (1. 225). Achilles acts out of impulse, not thought, like when he loans his specially blessed armor to his friend Patroclus, which draws the ire (and the eye) of Hector on the battlefield. And his most obvious, hideous act of vengeance is when Achilles takes out his grief and guilt about the death of his friend on Hector's body, preventing Hector from having a proper burial and entering the Elysian Fields after death. Of course, Hector killed Patroclus as a soldier in war, not out of anger, just as Achilles killed many men during the war, but Achilles does not apply the same standards of justice to other men that he applies to himself.

However, despite these many differences, the Trojan and the Greek warrior do possess some similar qualities.

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Both men are great fighters, and are looked up to as leaders of their respected sides. Both are loved by the gods. And both have an acute sense and respect for fate -- Hector knows he will die in battle, and Troy is likely doomed, and Achilles kills Hector, even knowing that he will die soon after Hector breathes his last. Both warriors, despite their ability to temporarily cheat death and to embody power and the extremes of glory in the mortal sphere, know they are, like all men, playthings of the gods. And through his interactions with Priam, Achilles learns the transience of glory and of his own existence. By killing Hector and winning his greatest fight, Achilles brings about his own death and learns the true weight, depth, and meaning of the choice he made, to forego a meaningful personal life.

Ironically, Achilles learns that life is meaningless without Patroclus, the one person he truly loved, just like Hector always knew that life would be meaningless without his wife and child, and life is hollow for Priam without his most beloved son. The last line of the poem does not honor Achilles and his wrath; rather it honors the Grecian enemy Hector, who ironically embodied the values of Greece far better than any of the Achaean warriors: "The Trojans buried Hector, breaker of horses." (24.944). Hector respected peace, even though he was great in times of war, and unlike Achilles, he never flouted the laws of his army and the laws of the gods.

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