(calm music) - So Erica, you've been working on the question of the beauty of war and a happy coincidence has arisen.

So last night or the other night in freshman seminar, we were reading book one of The Republic and I was trying to get the freshmen to appreciate that there's a problem with the virtue of justice.

It doesn't look, on the face of it, that beautiful.

You're like paying your taxes, not cheating, - Stopping at stop signs.

- That's right.

And I gave them a contrast to the virtue of courage.

And I said, you know, "When you see some beautiful, you see a courageous warrior like we encountered in the Iliad time and again, risking their lives, killing, dying, that looks beautiful.

Running away, waving your arms saying, 'Save me, save me,' looks ugly."

And some of them got it, but others said, "So what's so beautiful about killing and dying in war?"

So I thought that's a good question.

What is beautiful about it?

- I find it so difficult to think this through, and this is one of the things that I find helpful about Homer, is that he puts the beauty so much on the surface right up against the ugliness.

You know, we go from images of spectacular natural events in particular to images of heads rolling in the dust.

You know, within several lines you'll get something like, you know, people approaching as the snow melts and forms a torrent flying down the mountain.

There's these beautiful cascading water breaking loose from the ice.

And then three lines later, someone's head is chewing at the dust as they bleed out.

And I think the juxtaposition there makes me wonder whether there's some way in which the violence is in dialogue with nature in a way that makes facing up to violence, facing up to one's death, being courageous somehow gives it a kind of depth, attaches it to the deepest things like the beauty in nature.

So there's something kind of primal about it, I think.

- So that makes it sound that is the experience of battle sound elemental and natural.

And well, the kind of, you know, the kind of images one sees there may be similar to the images that inspire, you know, a romantic poet, for example, to write a beautiful poem about nature or even a love poem, you know, with flowers and moonlight and, you know, the sun.

So I mean that's, well, that just makes me wanna press this further.

I mean, do you want to then claim that these warriors, by displaying their beauty in battle, and we should look at some scenes too, by the way, and really probe this, are making themselves objects of love to us as readers or to each other?

- That's interesting that you frame it as the soldiers themselves making themselves objects of love because I wonder too about the role of Homer, the poet.

I mean, he's the one giving us the images of armies as flocking birds, including swans, you know, the most elegant of the birds and the images of men dying like wilting flowers, you know, these beautiful images.

Homer seems like he might be the one making them into objects of love.

But it's interesting to think about the possibility that they themselves, these men in some way want to engage in war in the manner of a kind of romantic passion, something primal like the forces of nature that Homer depicts when he is trying to show us what it's like for them, and maybe that's it.

Maybe he's trying to show us what it's like to be them in battle.

He's not just describing what it would look like if one were to watch it happen.

- Yeah, so that makes me think of that scene early on in Homer, is it book four or five when Hector is leaving his family, his wife, and his child, and, you know, so there you get the more conventional domestic attraction of love in marriage and domestic love.

But he's going out to fight and he's joined by Paris who has been in bed with Helen.

And Paris comes out of that the boudoir sort of frisky like a horse.

- [Erica] Yes.

- And playful and just ready to go into, "Well, I was with Helen making love.

Now I'm gonna go out and do something beautiful on the battlefield."

But there again, it's just like what you were saying, that there's something just continuous about those experiences.

Shall we look at that scene?

- Sure, yeah.

The scene where Paris bursts forth from the bedroom like a horse that's been kept in the stables a bit too long.

- Do you know where it is?

- Off the top of my head, perhaps not.

- Okay, I'll show you.

- Let's see.

Helen and Paris make love in book three.

- It's the end of book six.

Very end of book six.

- Okay.

- So let me read a little.

"Paris in turn did not linger long in his high house, but when he had put on his glorious armor with browns elaborate, he ran in the confidence of his quick feet through the city as when some stalled horse who has been corn fed at the manger, breaking free of his rope, gallops over the plain and thunder to his accustomed bathing place in a sweet running river.

And in the pride of his strength holds high his head and the mane floats over his shoulders.

Sure of his glorious strength, the quick knees carry him to the loved places and pasture of horses.

So from uttermost Pergamus came Paris, the son of Priam, shining in all his armor of war as the sun shines laughing aloud and his quick feet carried him.

Suddenly thereafter, he came on brilliant Hector, his brother, where he lingered before turning away from the place where he had talked with his lady."

And then Hector says to him a few lines down, "Strange man.

There's no way that one giving judgment in fairness could dishonor your work in battle since you are a strong man, but of your own accord, you hang back unwilling.

And my heart is grieved in its thought when I hear shameful things spoken about you by the Trojans who undergo hard fighting for your sake.

Let us go now.

Someday hereafter, we'll make all right with the immortal gods in the sky if Zeus grants it, setting up to them in our houses, the wine bowls of liberty after we have driven out of Troy the strong grieved Achaeans."

Now what do you make of that?

- Ha ha.

One of the things I love about this particular scene is the fact that the horse who is Paris bursts forth as though he's been yearning for it.

You know, as though he's been fed in the manger.

And this translation has it as "A stallion full fed at the manger, stalled too long, breaking free of his tether, gallops down the plain out for his favorite plunge in a river's cool currents."

That there's something in this creature that wants this and has been wanting it.

And he's been in bed with Helen.

You know, of all the domestic situations, you would think that might be at a premium.

That's the one you'd want.

And even so, this is what he wants.

There's something in him, the stallion in him wants to be out there and, you know, getting the glory, sure and sleek in his glory.

That glory's not in the bedroom, even if it is Helen in there with him.

- The laughter strikes me too.

I mean, he has a kind of, you know, jovial, even comic spirit.

And so what Hector says, he ought to be ashamed of, it seems to slide right off him.

That there's time for making love and there's a time for making war.

And I'm pretty good at both.

- I can have it all.

- Do you think that's right?

- I think the example of Paris is a tricky one because it goes so poorly on such a catastrophic scale that he has attempted to have it both ways, you know, to have the woman.

He'll just help himself to whoever's woman and at the same time to want to be manly.

And there's something difficult I think about his sort of willingness to dally off the battlefield, then partake of battle when he's ready to.

I don't know that it's a man's prerogative to pick and choose.

- Do you think Paris in mind and maybe Hector too later on, that one can be both sometimes a coward, sometimes courageous, sometimes beautiful in battle, sometimes ugly in battle?

- I think that if it were not possible to be more than one thing at once, perhaps even things that are intention all at once, this poem and life itself would not be nearly as interesting as it is.

I think Homer just sort of wonderfully presents us with that kind of complexity, exactly that difficulty that the best of the Trojans, Hector could ultimately turn tail and run in a moment of fear that his knees could go weak in a moment of fear and he could just run for it.

And not in that moment lose everything else that he has that makes him beautiful, glorious, courageous.

This is not the sort of downfall of all of Hector's virtue in this moment, I don't think.

I mean, Homer has anchored all of these things in his character deeply in what we've seen of him.

And so I think we're not obligated to sort of pin these human beings down as being this thing or that thing.

They are so many things, all of 'em.

- So that, you know, let's keep that point in mind, you know, the multiplicity of character and possibility.

But I wanted to press first the question of what exactly is one seeing when one is seeing a warrior either run, which I was previously calling ugly, or standing firm, or even charging forward, which I was calling beautiful.

What is it exactly that we're seeing?

You know, one word used in the passage here, though they're not yet in battle is glorious.

- [Erica] Right.

- You know, what does it mean to see glory?

Or what does it mean to see its opposite, whatever that might be?

Does that make sense?

I mean, I just- - It does.

I mean, I think the emphasis on to see glory is important because it seems clear that glory, whatever it is, to be seen is intrinsic to it.

It's not glory except to the extent that it is there shining forth to be seen.

So this question of what exactly it is one is seeing when an act takes place on the battlefield, it's sort of, it seems to me that's sort of what you're asking, that when the act of battle takes place, what is it you're seeing apart from, you know, the sort of outward manifestation?

And I want to think that it's in part what's happening in this man at this moment.

But that in part too, it's the connection to what's greater than the man that you, in the moments of glory, somehow the man is playing out what is glorious in a general, in a broader sense, in a, maybe a universal sense that he is in some way a vessel for this thing that is glory that is not particular to him exactly.

You know, you want to own your glory, but what you're partaking of seems like it has to be beyond the individual in order to be as magnificent as it is.

So perhaps you see something that looks like a kind of distilled virtue, you know, this moment of distilled virtue that shines in a way that perhaps off the battlefield, nothing can shine quite as brightly.

- So the word shining, I think that's crucial and interesting.

It suggests light or stars.

I think Homer uses the image of a star when Hector swoops in on Achilles.

We could look at that in a moment.

But I mean, that also suggests that it's an act that enables seeing.

So it's not only a question of what are you seeing, but now the first time you can see something that was always perhaps always there, but one doesn't see it until that moment.

Does that make sense to you?

- One wonders whether these men have moments of self-discovery in the acts of battle themselves.

This idea that maybe they see themselves very clearly when ultimately they do charge forth or turn tail and run.

That it may be that they're seeing what they wouldn't otherwise be able to see in themselves were it not tested with these sort of ultimate stakes.

So maybe that is part of it, that war makes visible the things inside a human being that might not otherwise be findable or seeable in quite such stark terms.

- Yeah, something inside us, but also maybe something that's present right at our elbows all the time.

So I was thinking of that passage when Sarpedon is speaking to his friend Glaucus before they charge the walls that the Achaeans had built up around their ships and they have a little speech together about why they're doing this.

Can we look at that?

- Sure, yes.

Glaucus, there we go.

- Shall I read this one or would you like to?

- Why don't you go ahead?

- Okay.

So Sarpedon, son of Zeus, is speaking to his friend Glaucus before the charge.

"Glaucus, why is it you and I are honored before others with pride of place, the choice meats, and the filled wine cups in Lycia and all men look on us as if we were immortals and we are appointed a great place of land by the banks of the Xanthus, good land, orchard and vineyard and plow land for the planting of wheat.

Therefore, it's our duty in the forefront of the Lycians to take our stand and bear our part in the blazing of battle so that a man of the close armored Lycians may say of us, indeed, these are noble men who are lords of Lycia, these kings of ours who feed upon the fat sheep appointed and drink the exquisite sweet wine since indeed there is strength of valor in them since they are fighting in the forefront of the Lycians.

Man, supposing you and I escaping this battle would be able to live on forever.

Ageless, immortal.

So neither would I myself go on fighting in the foremost, nor would I urge you into the fighting where men win glory.

But now seeing that the spirits of death stand close about us in their thousands, no man can turn aside nor escape them.

Let us go on and win glory for ourselves or yield it to others."

That I think is extraordinary.

- Yes.

- And now he seems to be saying, I'll just paraphrase it very simply.

Tell me if I'm going too far.

Since death is all around us at our elbows and we're not immortal and we're going to die, the thing to do is to charge into battle and win glory.

- [Erica] Yes.

- Is that a natural human thought that people have or is that something exceptional?

- It's ugly, but since it can't be escaped, let's approach it rather than run from it, something like this.

- [Louis] Let's charge right into it.

- Yeah.

It's an interesting question whether or not it's natural, because it does seem like it takes a scenario like this to concoct a situation in which such a question would even come to mind.

You know, there are not many situations where this particular issue is as starkly on the face of things as it is when one is overwhelmed by the enemy and clearly facing one's death right now.

So I think, you know, there may be something deep in the human being that when presented with such a thing, says, "Well, it's ugly, but maybe it'll be beautiful when I go toward it."

Maybe this is the way in which this sort of horror of death, of being gone, of being nothing, of going down to Hades and being a shade, the horror of that maybe in some way is offset by the beauty of the charge toward it, which would be interesting that it takes something hideous to present us with an opportunity to do something so beautiful is a kind of complicated and difficult idea, I think.

- Yes, it is complicated.

I mean, he speaks of it first as duty.

First as a way of justifying the good life that we've got as the lords of Achaea with all this land, with all this, you know, prosperity.

So it's a matter of, on the one hand, of confirming who you are in the eyes of others, but then he pushes it further.

It's precisely because we're not immortal that we have to do this.

Win glory for ourselves.

- And it may be precisely because they're not immortal that they can win glory.

If one can't die, I don't know that one can do something glorious.

- It's quite a paradox though, that one risks death or in this case of Sarpedon, one dies, they all die.

All the great ones in this book, except, you know, Odysseus.

You become immortal by dying.

And so that people, as he says, will speak of us in a certain way.

That seems to me important too, that they have some consciousness, not only of the spirits of death, but of speech, that this is action turning into poetry.

- Yeah, so that's interesting.

I guess it would be a way in which this sort of complicated relationship between one's actions becomes someone else's speeches and thus your actions transcend your mortality in some way by living beyond you.

And I guess maybe critical to all of that is this idea of glory.

Maybe that's what it is to be glorious, to do something that could survive beyond you because it would be worth turning into words that it could be put into speech.

I guess that sort of puts Homer in an interesting position since he has put all of this into speech.

You know, it's up to him to show us if there's beauty here, if there's glory here to make it manifest by taking these actions and turning them into words.

- Their honor is in Homer's hands, so to speak.

You know, that's a kind of trust though, in the future, a trust that it will be recorded, not forgotten.

- Right.

- You know, it reminds me, Herodotus opens his histories saying, "I'm writing these histories of the Persian wars precisely to make sure that the great things that were done and the names of the doers will not be forgotten."

- Yeah.

Cassandra says in the Oresteia sort of the complimentary flip side of that, that there is nothing worse than to die and simply be forgotten.

She begs, "Someone please care after I'm dead."

- So does that mean it's not really death, it's being forgotten, one's name, one's deeds, having all of that disappear from memory.

That's the thing to be overcome?

- It looks like something like that must be true.

And I wonder why, you know, whether perhaps that's the origin of this idea, glory, that we as human beings, there must, surely there is something in our deeds, there's some possibility of doing something that will transcend our mortality.

And maybe the name we give to that desire fulfilled is glory.

- Oh, but there's something else then.

Okay, 'cause, I think I understand that.

But then why when Sarpedon faces Petroclus and is killed by Petroclus, and his dying words are not to his friend, Glaucus, again, are not, you know, "Remember me," you know, "Write about me, tell my story," you know.

That, by the way, are Hamlet's dying words.

That it's, "Make sure they don't strip my armor and carry off my body."

So why is that so important, a piece of this equation that we're talking about?

- Yeah.

So I've been reading Hannah Arendt and she talks a lot about the world of the human artifice.

That part of what we do that marks out the fact that we actually have a life and a death.

That we are born and we die in a decisive way because there's a world of things that we've made outside of ourselves into which we're born and out of which we pass.

And she makes much of the idea that the things that we make, the actual material world that we construct provides the context in which we can be actors, doers, and not just a part of the endless cycle of nature.

And I wonder whether that's a key part of this, that somehow glory has to be manifest in the world, in that human artifice that she talks about.

Because if it's not manifest somehow in the world, it's not there really making our deeds into something that can be passed along.

You know, the material aspect of this is interesting.

They care so much about the armor.

- So the words are not enough in a way.

- Somehow it's, yeah.

- They're too airy.

You know, the armor has to be kept.

The body has to be properly taken from the battlefield and given the ritual funeral and all that.

- And the glory itself has to be somehow manifest in that material world of men's making, not just in the idea of a great deed or in, you know, reverence for those who complete the great deeds.

It looks to me like, at least for these men, glory needs to be worldly too.

And you see glory in the worldly form, maybe when the sun shines on the shields and when the armor is recovered and, you know, given to the man who loved the one who died, these kinds of things that it's important that it be there, physically, materially manifest.

- Yeah, we should look at Sarpedon's death.

- Sure.

- I want to ask you if you think it's beautiful.

So do you know where that is?

- Let's see.

That would be this.

- It's book 16.

- 16 before, down Sarpedon fell as an oak or white poplar falls at line 570 in Fagles' rendering, but I believe it's offset from most of the other translations.

So it's sort of, it'll be somewhere in the range of 462 to 494.

- I've got it.

Shall I read it?

- Great.

- Okay.

So Sarpedon is facing Patroclus who's wearing Achilles' armor and is on a great rampage going through the Trojans.

And we hear the following.

"Once again, Sarpedon threw wide with a cast of his shining spear so that the pointed head overshot the left shoulder of Patroclus.

And now Patroclus made the second cast with the brazen spear and the shaft escaping his hand was not flung vainly, but struck where the beating heart in close in the arch of the muscles.

He, Sarpedon fell as when an oak goes down or a white poplar, or like a towering pine, which in the mountains, the carpenters have been hoeing down with their wedded axes to make ship timber.

So he lay there, felled, in front of his horses and chariots roaring and clawed with his hands at the bloody dust, or as a blazing and haughty bull in a huddle of shambling cattle when a lion has come among the herd and destroys him, dies."

(calm music)