Monday, November 11th, is
Remembrance Day and Veterans Day.
For some, this is just another day they
might get off work. They’ll carry on as usual, ignorant or uncaring of the
reasons for this day or why so many people are wearing red poppies.
Thankfully, many people still do remember
that Novebmer 11th is a day for remembering those men and women who
have died in the line of duty. You may not agree with the motives for some of
these wars, you may support them vehemently. Whatever your opinion of the
battles, this is a time to honour the courage of the soldier on the ground, the
warriors past and present.
This year, I’d like to share an excerpt
from Homer’s Odyssey. Below is a moving description of the funeral of Achilles,
the Greek warrior who has inspired soldiers and others for thousands of years. Here, in the meadow of asphodel, the 'dwelling-place of souls', Agamemnon meets Achilles and tells the hero of his funeral in the land of Troy:
“Happy son of Peleus, Achilles like the
gods,” answered the ghost of Agamemnon, “for having died at Troy far from
Argos, while the best of the Trojans and the Achaeans fell around you fighting
for your body. There you lay in the whirling clouds of dust, all huge and hugely,
heedless now of your horsemanship. We fought the whole of the livelong day, nor
should we ever have left off if Zeus tore their hair and wept bitterly round
about you. Your mother, when she heard, came with her immortal nymphs from out
of the sea, and the sound of heavenly wailing went forth over the waters so
that the Achaeans old Nestor whose counsel was ever truest checked them saying,
`Hold, Argives, flee not, sons of the Achaeans, this is his mother coming from
the sea with her immortal nymphs to view the body of her son.' Thus he spoke,
and the Achaeans feared no more. The daughters of the old man of the sea stood
round you weeping bitterly, and clothed you in immortal raiment. The nine muses
also came and lifted up their sweet voices in lament—calling and answering one
another; there was not an Argive but wept for pity of the dirge they chanted.
Days and nights seven and ten we mourned you, mortals and immortals, but on the
eighteenth day we gave you to the flames, and many a fat sheep with many an ox
did we slay in sacrifice around you. You were burnt in raiment of the gods,
with rich resins and with honey, while Achaean heroes, horse and foot, clashed
their armor round the pile as you were burning, with the tramp as of a great
multitude. But when the flames of heaven had done their work, we gathered your
white bones at daybreak and laid them in ointments and in pure wine. Your
mother brought us a golden amphora to hold them—gift of Dionysos, and work of
Hephaistos himself; in this we mingled your bleached bones with those of
Patroklos, who had been closer to you than any other of your comrades now that
Patroklos was no more. Over their bodies we the sacred army of Argive spearmen
piled up a huge and perfect tomb, on a jutting headland, by the wide Hellespont,
so that it may be bright from afar for men coming from the sea, both those who
are now and those who will be in the future. Your mother begged prizes from the
gods, and offered them to be contended for by the noblest of the Achaeans. You
must have been present at the funeral of many a hero, when the young men gird
themselves and make ready to contend for prizes on the death of some great
chieftain, but you never saw such prizes as silver-footed Thetis offered in
your honor; for the gods loved you well. Thus even in death your kleos,
Achilles, has not been lost, and your name lives evermore among all humankind.”
(Homer; Odyssey. Book 24. lines 35–95)
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| Troy - Kesik Tepe, Turkey - possible Tumulus of Achilles where Alexander the Great made sacrifices to the heroes of the Trojan War |
This passage never fails to move me, for it
honours one of the greatest heroes of the ancient world in such a beautiful
way. Today, Achilles may seem outrageous and brutal, selfish. But to ancient
eyes, he was what every warrior aspired to. For thousands of years afterward,
the ghost of Achilles’ exploits followed men into battle at home, and on
foreign fields.
Achilles is buried with his brother-in-arms,
Patroklos, in a tumulus overlooking
the sea, far away from their home in Greece.
So too are buried hundreds of thousands of
soldiers who fought in the horrible wars of our modern era. They lie in orderly
rows, also overlooking the sea, where they were buried by their brothers and
sisters in war.
Never mind the political machinations of
the past and present. Those who have lost, and fought, and suffered, and died,
are no less deserving of our remembrance than the heroes of that long ago war
beneath high-walled Troy. 
