'Bear up, my heart!' : endurance in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey

Abstract

Homeric man endures by resolutely facing death, and by cautiously fleeing from it. He endures by standing his ground in battle, and by retreating from it; by steeling himself to act, and by remaining passive; by daring to stand face to face with his enemy, and by resisting the impulse to do so; and by bracing himself to suffer insults, beatings, and humiliations, from kissing the hand o f the man who slaughtered countless o f his sons, to sleeping on the ground of his own home while listening to the laughter o f his servants as they betray him. But, most importantly, Homeric man - and in this also Homeric woman - endures by submitting to his divinely apportioned fate.1 As varied as these examples are, and despite the fact that they often stand in stark opposition to one another, I argue that they each contain the same core o f Homeric endurance: that is, Homeric man endures (often after anguished deliberation) by choosing to check his passions either completely or temporarily, to flee from or respond to some hardship, rather than to give in to them and behave as they dictate. This endurance requires inner-strength and flexibility, foresight, patience, and humility; characteristics that range from uncharacteristic of, to profoundly alien to, the dominant ancient Greek tradition of courage, which I will call ‘the bravery tradition.’