Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Achilles-More than a Man?
Achilles was the Hero of the Trojan War- the greatest warrior of Homer's Illiad. He was less than a God but more than a Man. This person is considered a Demi-God. He was invincible in battle and no one could kill him. He only had one weak spot. The Achilles Tendon was his weak point where if that was to be injured then he would die. The reason for his heel being so weak was because when Achilles was a boy his mother dipped him into the River of Styx and the only part of his body that did not go into the water was his heel. The water was a shield for Achilles. Achilles fought many men and was undefeated, he had a great life with women, wine, food, and anything he desired because he was the most feared soldier. While fighting the Trojan War, Achilles was killed by Prince Paris. Prince Paris was an excllent archer. He shot Achilles straight through the heel and Achilles fell that night. The was the last battle he ever fought.
This statue represents Achilles and he is leaning to his weak spot..the Achilles Tendon
This statue represents Achilles and he is leaning to his weak spot..the Achilles Tendon
Team 2: apupello
My first real exposure to the Achilles story was the movie Troy. I found the film very entertaining and the character Achilles a compelling and torn character. He made all his choices based on passion and his longing to be remembered instead of thinking of the here and now. Choosing to fight in a war against a country who did nothing to him or his people for his own glory was his downfall in the end. It's a good lesson much like many parables in the Bible. When a person over reaches and puts themselves on a pedestal they are generally knocked off. It's stories like this and others throughout history that teach humility and the benefits of humbling ones self instead of letting pride be your "Achilles" heel.
ReplyDeleteShywan Adamski
Team 5
That film was so disappointing. There was no philosophical dimension. I expected something more akin to the Illiad...
ReplyDelete...The Iliad is the story of the siege of Troy, which will fall in the dust, and of its defenders, who will be killed in battle. The wife of Hector, the leader, says to him: “Your strength will be your destruction; and you have no pity either for your infant son or for your unhappy wife who will soon be your widow. For soon the Achaeans will set upon you and kill you; and if I lose you it would be better for me to die.”
Her husband replies: “Well do I know this, and I am sure of it: that day is coming when the holy city of Troy will perish, and Priam and the people of wealthy Priam. But my grief is not so much for the Trojans, nor for Hecuba herself, nor for Priam the King, nor for my many noble brothers, who will be slain by the foe and will lie in the dust, as for you, when one of the bronze-clad Achaeans will carry you away in tears and end your days of freedom. Then you may live in Argos, and work at the loom in another woman’s house, or perhaps carry water for a woman of Messene or Hyperia, sore against your will: but hard compulsion will lie upon you. And then a man will say as he sees you weeping, 'This was the wife of Hector, who was the noblest in battle of the horse-taming Trojans, when they were fighting around Ilion.' This is what they will say: and it will be fresh grief for you, to fight against slavery bereft of a husband like that. But may I be dead, may the earth be heaped over my grave before I hear your cries, and of the violence done to you.”
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Pirsig
...So spake shining Hector and held out his arms to his son. But the child screamed and shrank back into the bosom of the well-girdled nurse, for he took fright at the sight of his dear father - at the bronze and the crest of horsehair which he saw swaying terribly at the top of the helmet. His father laughed aloud, and his lady mother too. At once shining Hector took the helmet off his head and laid it on the ground, and when he had kissed his dear son and dandled him in his arms, he prayed to Zeus and to the other gods: Zeus and ye other gods, grant that this my son may be, as I am, most glorious among the Trojans and a man of might, and greatly rule in Ilion. And may they say, as he returns from war, “He is far better than his father.”
ReplyDelete“What moves the Greek warrior to deeds of heroism,” Kitto comments, “is not a sense of duty as we understand it - duty towards others: it is rather duty towards himself. He strives after that which we translate virtue but is in Greek areté, excellence ...[areté] runs through Greek life...”
Thus the hero of the Odyssey is a great fighter, a wily schemer, a ready speaker, a man of stout heart and broad wisdom who knows that he must endure without too much complaining what the gods send; and he can both build and sail a boat, drive a furrow as straight as anyone, beat a young braggart at throwing the discus, challenge the Phaeacian youth at boxing, wrestling or running; flay, skin, cut up and cook an ox, and be moved to tears by a song. He is in fact an excellent all-rounder; he has surpassing areté.
Areté implies a respect for the wholeness or oneness of life, and a consequent dislike of specialisation. It implies a contempt for efficiency - or rather a much higher idea of efficiency, an efficiency which exists not in one department of life but in life itself...
…There, Phædrus thinks, is a definition of Quality that had existed a thousand years before the dialecticians ever thought to put it to word-traps. Anyone who cannot understand this meaning without logical definiens and definendum and differentia is either lying or so out of touch with the common lot of humanity as to be unworthy of receiving any reply whatsoever. Phædrus is fascinated too by the description of the motive of “duty toward self” which is an almost exact translation of the Sanskrit word dharma, sometimes described as the "one" of the Hindus. Can the dharma of the Hindus and the "virtue" of the ancient Greeks be identical?
Then Phædrus feels a tugging to read the passage again, and he does so and then - what's this?! – “That which we translate ‘virtue’ but is in Greek ‘excellence’. ”
Lightning hits!
Quality! Virtue! Dharma! That is what the Sophists were teaching! Not ethical relativism. Not pristine "virtue." But areté. Excellence. Dharma! Before the Church of Reason. Before substance. Before form. Before mind and matter. Before dialectic itself. Quality had been absolute. Those first teachers of the Western world were teaching Quality, and the medium they had chosen was that of rhetoric...
See my site at http://www.Phaenomenon2.com
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