by Greg Johnson
With a great and moving truth, the Iliad thus shows several antagonistic natures, Helen and Paris, Achilles and Hector.
THE STOICISM & PATRIOTISM OF HECTOR
Achilles is the incarnation of youth (he is not yet 30). He is also the incarnation of Force. It is the radiant and untamed Force before which everything submits. A Force subjected to passion. Achilles does not dominate anything. He suffers everything: Briseis, Agamemnon, Patroclus, Hector. Circumstances unleash in him one storm after another. Everything in him defies death. He never thinks of it, although he knows it is near. He loves life enough to prefer its intensity to its duration. Strange destiny! His love of glory, his impatience, and his anger keep him far from battle during the first 18 books of the Poem, to the point of endangering his own. To save the army, he need only rise, which Ulysses says to him: “Rise and save the army . . .”
Awakened by the death of Patroclus, the Force rises: “Achilles rose . . . A great brightness radiated from his head to the sky, and he strode to the edge of the ditch. There, upright, he let out a cry, and this voice caused an inexpressible tumult among the Trojans” (Book XVIII).
Homer implicitly sympathizes with Hector. This Poem of the Achaeans thus treats their principal enemy as an exemplar. Is there any equivalent to this nobility in our national epics or the holy books of the Near or Far East? Though he is as brave as Achilles, Hector’s courage is not blind. He is the very incarnation of stoic courage. He is not immune to fear. But he conquers it. Even though he knows that all is lost, he fights to the limit of his endurance.
Hector is also the incarnation of patriotism. For him, honor merges with duty. He is ready to die, not for his own glory, but for his country, his wife, and his child. He will defend them against all hope, because he knows Troy is lost.
Nothing is more carnal than Hector’s love for his fatherland, of whom his woman and son are the concrete images. He does not hide his fears for Andromache before leaving her for battle:
I know that the day will come when holy Troy will perish, and Priam, and the people of Priam. But neither the future misfortunes of the Trojans, nor that of my mother, or King Priam and my courageous brothers, afflict me as much as a bronze armored Achaean taking your freedom and leading you away in tears. . . . May the heavy earth claim me in death before I hear you cry, before I see you snatched away from here . . . (Book VI, 447–65)
With these words, he stretches his arms towards his son. But the child bursts into tears, terrified by the gleaming helmet of his father. Laughing, Hector takes off his helmet and gives the child to Andromache, who takes him in her arms “with laughter in tears.” Here Homer’s poetic genius shines forth. Hector tactfully corrects his dark predictions: “Don’t cry,” he says to Andromache, “Nobody can send me beneath the earth before the appointed hour.”
The moment before, Andromache begged Hector not to go. She does so no longer. She understands that he defends their freedom and mutual affection. In this last conversation of two spouses, there is something unique in all ancient literature: a perfect equality in love. One never ceases discovering the incomparable richness of the Iliad, which concludes with the preparation of Hector’s funeral. The death of Achilles and the “Trojan horse” are briefly evoked only in the Odyssey (Books XI and VIII).
THE ODYSSEY: THE PLACE OF MAN IN THE COSMOS
The second of the great Poems recounts, in 12,000 verses and 24 books, the difficult return of Ulysses to his fatherland. A return opposed by a thousand terrifying obstacles. The Odyssey is thus a poem of homecoming and of justified vengeance.
But the Odyssey is more than that. Under narrative pretexts different from Iliad, the second poem suggests the “worldview” suitable for Hellenes. It shows the place of man in nature and in relation to the mysterious forces that order it.
Putting mortals in harmony with the cosmic order is at the heart of the Homeric poems. But Homer’s Heaven is placed beyond the primitive times of the foundation of cosmos evoked by the old myths, whose contents were formalized in Hesiod’s Theogony: the confrontation of Ouranos and Cronos, the combat of the Olympian gods and their victory over the Titans. From all that, the Poet retains only the Olympian light, without worrying about building a coherent system. In Homer, the coherence is not in the discourse. It is in himself.
The departure from and return to the cosmic order form the framework of the Odyssey. Ulysses unintentionally provokes Poseidon’s anger by blinding his son, the Cyclops Polyphemus. This is the way of man’s destiny. Unintentionally, we provoke the anger and the punishment of the gods (representations of the forces of nature). Thus we must fight and endure their torments to return to the harmony we have lost.
This is the fate of Ulysses. Facing the terrifying tests imposed by Poseidon, who plunged him into a world of chaos, monsters (Scylla and Charybdis), and of possessive or perverse nymphs (Calypso, Circe, the Sirens)—not to mention a visit to the realm of the dead—the navigator tirelessly fights to escape the traps and to find his place in the order of the world. Thrown into mortal peril, Ulysses will spend ten years returning home.
This is not merely the pretext for Homer to charm his audience with fantastic stories. The long voyage of Ulysses is drawn by the invincible desire of men, the “eaters of bread,” to escape chaos and find an orderly cosmos. No doubt the love for Penelope and longing for Ithaca are at the heart of his desire to return. But they merely exemplify the hope to again fit in to the order of the world. Having found and reconquered his fatherland, Ulysses will be able to re-establish in the chain of generations, a fragment of eternity.
In the last sequence, every step of the reconquest of Ithaca is imprinted in the memory up to the massacre of the “suitors” (usurpers of Ithaca). How the hero is recognized by his son Telemachus and how they weave a meticulous plan of revenge. How Ulysses arrives at his manor, disguised as a beggar, who is recognized only by his old dog Argos, who dies of joy. How he is recognized by his nurse, Eurykleia, who sees an old scar, a souvenir of a memorable boar hunt. And then there is Penelope, anxious, worried, inquisitive. Then comes the moment of just vengeance in an orgy of bloodshed. And reunion with Penelope is finally possible. Then Athena intervenes, which delays the arrival of “rosy-fingered” Dawn, so that the night of the return lasts longer . . .
In the Odyssey, Homer does not only laud the memory of the heroes. He glorifies Eurykleia, Ulysses’ nurse, and Eumaios, his swineherd, two subordinate characters who are nevertheless exemplars of intelligence and fidelity. Their role in the reconquest of Ithaca is capital. Thanks to Homer, they live on today.
THE POEM OF WOMANHOOD RESPECTED
Because of the marked presence of Penelope, the Odyssey is also the poem of independent and respected womanhood. When Penelope appears in the great hall of the palace of Ithaca, grand and beautiful, her brilliant veils drawn back on her cheeks, like golden Aphrodite, the knees of the “suitors” go weak and desire invades their hearts (Odyssey, Book XVIII, 249).
Lover, wife, and mother, Penelope takes charge of the small kingdom of Ithaca in the absence of Ulysses, a sign of the consideration given to womanhood. Many other women are present in Homer. In the Iliad, Helen, Andromache, Hecuba, and Briseis. In the Odyssey, Helen again, Calypso, and the charming Nausicaa. But Penelope eclipses all, except perhaps Helen, who is in a class by herself.
Compelled, like women of our time, to develop the knack of remaining feminine in a social world dominated by male values, she suffered often but never gave up. She remains beautiful and desirable in spite of time. She also knows the importance of modesty to live in the company of men. When tormented too much, she takes refuge in sleep, under Athena’s watch. Against the avid pack of suitors, she does not use masculine violence. She charms, smiles, and invents the stratagem of the perpetually rewoven shroud, turning to her advantage the cupidity of which she is the object, and which perhaps does not displease her.
However, with the return of Ulysses, the craftiest of men, she deceives him somewhat
as well, pretending not to recognize him even after he massacred the “suitors” with the assistance of their son Telemachus. He will first have to prove his identity by the test of the secret of the conjugal bed, before she agrees to give herself to him. In which sacred story of other cultures can one find the equivalent of Penelope and her radiant femininity?
THE POLITICAL ORDER OF THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES
Behind the story, there is also a vision of the world and life that awakens the memory of a lost wisdom. In Homer, the forests, the rocks, the wild beasts have souls. The whole of nature merges with the sacred, and men are not isolated from it.
If the cosmos is the model for Homer’s world, the model of society is found in the allegory of Achilles’ shield forged by Hephaestus (Iliad, Book XVIII). Depicted there are two cities, one in peace, the other in war, the two faces of life. One sees that the Greek city to come, with its citizens, institutions, and reciprocal duties, is already present in the Homeric world. Hector says explicitly that he dies for the freedom of his fatherland (Iliad, Book VI, 455–528).
The foundation of social organization and civil peace is the ethnic unity of the city and respect for the laws guaranteed by the ancients. Men are happy in a happy society, one that always remains the same, where one marries as one’s ancestors married, where one plows and harvests as one always plowed and harvested. Individuals pass, but the city remains.
As Marcel Conche stresses, a society that can read its future in its past is a society at rest, without concern. This permanence grounds a sense of security. But innovations, “progress,” will bring disorder. When one dreams of the ideal city and better days to come, everyone’s peace of mind is destroyed. Then dissatisfaction with oneself and the world predominates. What, on the contrary, is illustrated on the shield of Achilles, is a happy society, filled with love of life, as it has always been. The weddings are joyous, equity reigns, civic friendship is shared by all. When war comes, the city closes ranks and mounts the ramparts. The enemy has not a single ally in the place. What peace of mind!
DESTINY COMMANDS BOTH GODS & MEN
Homer’s heroes are not, however, models of perfection. They are prone to error and excess in proportion to their vitality. They pay the price, but they are never subject to a transcendent justice punishing sins defined by a code foreign to life. Neither the pleasures of the senses or of force, nor the joys of sexuality are likened to evil.
In Book III of the Iliad (161–75), the too beautiful Helen is invited by old King Priam onto the walls of Troy, in order to show her the two armies, for a truce had just been concluded. Quite conscious of being the involuntary cause of the war, Helen groans, saying that she would rather be dead. Priam then responds with an infinite gentleness that surprises us to this day: “No, my daughter, you are not guilty of anything. It is the gods who are responsible for it all!” What delicacy and high-mindedness from the old king, whose sons will all be killed. But what generous wisdom also, which releases human beings from the guilt that so often overpowers other beliefs.
In placing these words in the mouth of Priam, Homer does not say that men are never responsible for the misfortunes that strike them. He shows elsewhere how much vanity, desire, anger, folly, and other failings can cause calamities. But in the specific case of this war, as in many wars, he stresses that everything escapes the will of men. It is the gods, fate, or destiny that decides.
History teaches us how judicious this interpretation is. How can one not be struck by its wisdom, when so many religions claim that human beings and their supposed sins are the cause of all the disasters of which they are victims, including earthquakes?208
But the words of Priam have a broader meaning still. They suggest that in the life of man, many of one’s imagined faults are actually caused by fate. This distance regarding the mysteries of existences, this respect for others, are constants in the Homeric poems. This goes to show the very high level of civility and wisdom of the world Homer describes, by comparison to which ours often seems barbaric.
Homer thus bequeathed us, in their unaltered purity, our models and principles of life: nature as foundation, excellence as goal, beauty as horizon, the mutual respect of man and woman. The Poet reminds us that we were not born yesterday. He restores the foundations of our identity, the paramount expression of an ethical and aesthetic inheritance that is “ours,” that he held in trust. And the principles that he brought to life in his models never cease to reappear to us, proof that the hidden thread of our tradition could not be broken.
Counter-Currents/North American New Right,
September 8, 9, & 11, 2010
MARS & HEPHAESTUS:
THE RETURN OF HISTORY209
GUILLAUME FAYE
_______________________
TRANSLATED BY GREG JOHNSON
Allow me an “archeofuturist” parable based on the eternal symbol of the tree, which I will compare to that the rocket. But before that, let us contemplate the grim face of the coming century.
The 21st century will be a century of iron and storms. It will not resemble those harmonious futures predicted up to the 1970s. It will not be the global village prophesied by Marshall McLuhan in 1966, or Bill Gates’ planetary network, or Francis Fukuyama’s end of history: a liberal global civilization directed by a universal state. It will be a century of competing peoples and ethnic identities. And paradoxically, the victorious peoples will be those that remain faithful to, or return to, ancestral values and realities—which are biological, cultural, ethical, social, and spiritual—and that at the same time will master techno-science. The 21st century will be the one in which European civilization, Promethean and tragic but eminently fragile, will undergo a metamorphosis or enter its irremediable twilight. It will be a decisive century.
In the West, the 19th and 20th centuries were a time of belief in emancipation from the laws of life, belief that it was possible to continue on indefinitely after having gone to the moon. The 21st century will probably set the record straight and we will “return to reality,” probably through suffering.
The 19th and 20th centuries saw the apogee of the bourgeois spirit, that mental smallpox, that monstrous and deformed simulacrum of the idea of an elite. The 21st century, a time of storms, will see the joint renewal of the concepts of a people and an aristocracy. The bourgeois dream will crumble from the putrefaction of its fundamental principles and petty promises: happiness does not come from materialism and consumerism, triumphant transnational capitalism, and individualism. Nor from safety, peace, or social justice.
Let us cultivate the pessimistic optimism of Nietzsche. As Drieu La Rochelle wrote: “There is no more order to conserve; it is necessary to create a new one.” Will the beginning of the 21st century be difficult? Are all the indicators in the red? So much the better. They predicted the end of history after the collapse of the USSR? We wish to speed its return: thunderous, bellicose, and archaic. Islam resumes its wars of conquest. American imperialism is unleashed. China and India wish to become superpowers. And so forth. The 21st century will be placed under the double sign of Mars, the god of war, and of Hephaestus, the god who forges swords, the master of technology and the chthonic fires.
TOWARDS THE FOURTH AGE OF EUROPEAN CIVILIZATION
European civilization—one should not hesitate to call it higher civilization, despite the mealy-mouthed ethnomasochist xenophiles—will survive the 21st century only through an agonizing reappraisal of some of its principles. It will be able if it remains anchored in its eternal metamorphic personality: to change while remaining itself, to cultivate rootedness and transcendence, fidelity to its identity and grand historical ambitions.
The First Age of European civilization includes antiquity and the medieval period: a time of gestation and growth. The Second Age goes from the Age of Discovery to the First World War: it is the Assumption. European civilization conquers the world. But like Rome or Alexander’s Empire, it was devoured by its own prodigal children, the West and America, and b
y the very peoples it (superficially) colonized. The Third Age of European civilization commences, in a tragic acceleration of the historical process, with the Treaty of Versailles and end of the civil war of 1914–18: the catastrophic 20th century. Four generations were enough to undo the labor of more than forty. History resembles the trigonometrical asymptotes of “catastrophe theory”: it is at the peak of its splendor that the rose withers; it is after a time of sunshine and calm that the cyclone bursts. The Tarpeian Rock is next to the Capitol!
Europe fell victim to its own tragic Prometheanism, its own opening to the world. Victim of the excess of any imperial expansion: universalism, oblivious of all ethnic solidarity, thus also the victim of petty nationalism.
The Fourth Age of European civilization begins today. It will be the Age of rebirth or perdition. The 21st century will be for this civilization, the heir of the fraternal Indo-European peoples, the fateful century, the century of life or death. But destiny is not simply fate. Contrary to the religions of the desert, the European people know at the bottom of their hearts that destiny and divinities are not all-powerful in relation to the human will. Like Achilles, like Ulysses, the original European man does not prostrate himself or kneel before the gods, but stands upright. There is no inevitability in history.
THE PARABLE OF THE TREE
A Tree has roots, a trunk, and leaves. That is to say, the principle, the body, and the soul.