Of Rage and the Man

While reflecting in a recent post on the relationship between emotions and moral character, I noted that our culture, it seems, still privileges reason over emotion.  Often this occurs to the denigration or exclusion of  emotion.  It is true:  sometimes human passions can be so powerful as to result in miscalculation and excesses that are contrary to the balance inherent in a virtuous life.  But that is not necessarily the case, as I was reminded while rereading Homer's epic poems. 

Consider the opening lines and themes of the Iliad and Odyssey.  The Iliad opens with the word "rage:"

Rage -- Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses... (Il. 1.1-2)

The poem is about the destructive consequences of Achilles' wrathful passion.  What is more, his emotional outpouring occurred in the context of a relationship, that between Achilles and Agamemnon, as the Greek army publicly watched:

Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,
Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles. (Il. 1.7-8)

By contrast, the Odyssey is about the successful calculation, albeit amid much suffering, of Odysseus.  Indeed, as we learn the origin of the scar on his leg, we are told the origin of his name, which means "Son of Pain, a name he'll earn in full" (19.464).  He also is polytropos, the man of many ways, or "twists and turns," the one who knows what each situation requires and who, unlike his men, is not reckless.  As in the Iliad, the first word of the Odyssey indicates the epic poem's subject.  In Greek it holds the emphatic primary position, although English translations can obscure this slightly.  The first word is "man."

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns,
driven time and again off course, once he had plundered
the hallowed heights of Troy.
Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds,
many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea,
fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home.
But he could not save them from disaster, hard as he strove --
the recklessness of their own ways destroyed them all,
the blind fools... (Od. 1.1-9a)

Different from Achilles, whose rage prompts him to withdraw from the duty immediately before him, Odysseus, who may serve as an ideal Greek man, battles through the adversity and shame heaped on him by the gods.  A potential peril throughout Odysseus' wanderings home is that he will lose his memory and his desire to reunite with his wife, to encourage greater manliness in his son, and to put to rights the disorder in his house.  This amnesia of and disregard for relationships and duty are, for instance, the specific dangers posed by the Lotus-eaters and potion-brewing Circe.

Both heroes win fame, but they do so in very different -- and instructive -- ways.  The bard of the Odyssey, after all, beseeches the muse to "sing for our time too" (Od. 1.10).  The poetic lessons of the Odyssey are relevant for all who hear its verses.

If Homer's story is one way of bringing the past to bear on the present, then how does it bear on my present?

This question lies behind the belief that motivated biblical interpretation at least as early as the Persian period and arguably centuries earlier.  For the Judeans who were in exile, textually recording their past was a means of understanding the present.  "For the past was everywhere.  It was what explained the present, and was the standard by which the present was to be judged and upon which future hopes were to be based; and it was legitimacy," explains James L. Kugel ("Early Interpretation," in Kugel and Greer, Early Biblical Interpretation, 36; also 38).  In the 8th century, Greeks may not have treated Homer's poems as inspired scripture in the same sense that early Jews possibly did at the same time but certainly did a few centuries later.  Still, the Greeks -- and we -- may hear Homer as "singing for our time too."

I am challenged when I reread these poems.  Once I had a writing professor who encouraged me to be more concise.  "More Hemingway, less Faulkner," he advised.  I have always remembered that counsel, although I struggle constantly to put it into practice.  So with Homer.  Now I tell myself, "More Odysseus, less Achilles."

It is not exactly that I boil with indignation at public humiliation.  It is not that I retreat to my tent in a huff and pout while friends fall in harm's way.  Maybe I am not reckless like Odysseus' men or murderous like Achilles.  I may not display violence in excess or humiliate noble adversaries like Thetis' son did to Hector.  But it is the case that all too frequently passion gets the best of me.

Self-control takes a backseat to pride.  And I would do well to be more restrained like Odysseus, patiently "learning the minds" of those with whom I find myself frustrated.  I would perhaps benefit myself and others by bearing up under suffering, confident of the divine good end that will surely come to fruition, or, if it is delayed, assured that I am acting with love, fidelity, resourcefulness, and honor.

Odysseus has a rich emotional life.  It is on display more than would be acceptable publicly in our day.  He weeps viscerally at the loss of his comrades.  Particularly touching, though, is the description of Odysseus' sympathy for Penelope, who mourns the absence of the very husband who is disguised before her:

As she listened on, her tears flowed and soaked her cheeks
as the heavy snow melts down from the high mountain ridges,
snow the West Wind piles there and the warm East Wind thaws
and the snow, melting, swells the rivers to overflow their banks --
so she dissolved in tears, streaming down her lovely cheeks,
weeping for him, her husband, sitting there beside her.
Odysseus' heart went out to his grief-stricken wife
but under his lids his eyes remain stock-still --
they might have been horn or iron --
his guile fought back his tears. (Od. 19.236-45)

The king of Ithaca is emotionally complex.  As for compassion, he is neither cold (he feels deeply) nor crippled (he masters his feeling dutifully).

So in saying what I have I am not denigrating or excluding emotion, as I have noted often occurs in our culture.  Odysseus blazed a better path than Achilles.  The son of Laertes, raider of cities, the old campaigner, great and thoughtful Odysseus had command over himself.  He was a paradigm of self-control.

Well, he was most of the time.  One wonders whether he would have fared better with Poseidon had he not disclosed his true identity in a self-congratulatory boast to Polyphemus, the sea god's son, after gouging out his one eye.

But that is just it.  Odysseus was not perfect. We can identify with him -- with his arrogance, with his pride, with his yearning for glory, fame, and acknowledgement.  We can relate because Odysseus is human. 

He is also a hero, ideal in many respects.  "Odysseus.  There was a man, or was he all a dream," Penelope simultaneously celebrates and laments (19.363; my emphasis).  His courage, prowess, wily determination, and self-control, along with his sense of duty and fairness -- all of these move our emotions as we read his story, the story of human pain and perseverance, travail and triumph.  And we are moved, or should be, to emulate the virtuous characteristics in this emblematic Greek man whose story, aside from some differences in particulars, is also our own.