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The death of Hector
by Johannes Haubold
Hector must be among the most engaging characters in the Iliad. Readers appreciate his sense of duty towards Troy, his city. They warm to the fact that he has a wife and child, both of whom he loves dearly, and they are moved by his decision to die after having let down his people, a failure which he acknowledges with deep regret. One could find many more reasons why Hector strikes a chord with modern readers, and perhaps the very fact that there are so many of them is significant: Hector is portrayed more diversely than other characters; he feels more 'real', more like a human being. Most importantly, perhaps, we sympathize with Hector, because he sympathizes with other people. From book two of the epic where he first appears, Hector is seen as a friendly, caring figure, a warrior who is always in close contact with those he defends. Achilles comes close to being the exact opposite. He cares little about others and much about himself; as a result we see him sitting in his tent most of the time, angry and self-absorbed. Achilles will, of course, have to accept in the course of the poem that he is not alone on the earth, just as Hector will come to accept that he is alone, moments before his death. But while Achilles reacts by resigning himself somewhat grudgingly to the limitations of his existence, Hector reaches out for a new form of human companionship.Hector decides to die
There is another reason why we might like Hector best of all: in the moment of his deepest despair, he decides to die for us, his audience. Let us have a look at the decisive lines in book 22 (289-305, here in a modified version of Lattimore's translation):
So he spoke, and balanced the spear far shadowed, and threw it,
and struck in the middle of Achilles' shield, nor missed it,
but the spear was driven far back from the shield, and Hector was angered
because his swift weapon had been loosed from his hand in a vain cast.
He stood discouraged, and had no other ash spear;
but lifting his voice he called aloud on Deiphobus of the pale shield,
and asked him for a long spear but Deiphobus was not near him.
And Hector knew the truth inside his heart and spoke aloud:
" No use. Here at last the gods have called me deathward.
I thought the hero Deiphobus was here close beside me
but he is he behind the wall and it was Athena cheating me,
and now evil death is close to me, and no longer far away,
and there is no way out. So it must long since have been pleasing
to Zeus and Zeus' son who strikes from afar, this way; though before this
they defended me gladly. But now my fate is upon me.
Let me at least not die without a struggle, inglorious,
but do a big thing first, that men to come shall know of it.
The passage comes after the famous chase around Troy. Achilles, has followed Hector three times around the city walls. When they run for the fourth time, Athena descends from Olympus. assumes the likeness of Deiphobus and tricks Hector into standing his ground.
Homeric men fight other men in single combat not because they are without fear or do not have a developed sense of what it means to be alone. Quite the reverse is true. There arc few places in the world that get more lonely than a crowded Homeric battle-field. Time and again, warriors cry out for help from their friends and react with relief when someone comes to their aid: and so, too, Hector. In book 22, he is left on his own outside the city walls. For the first time in the epic, Hector is utterly isolated and for the first time he panics and runs for his life. What a relief. when Deiphobus arrives. He is not the strongest fighter on the Trojan side (that would have been Aeneas), but the one most dear to Hector. We might say shat the effect of his arrival is above all psychological. Or, perhaps in a more Homeric vein: Deiphobus brings Hector into renewed contact with those dear to him.
It is ironic that Hector must realize his complete isolation after a short span of renewed hope. His dearest brother instils in him the warmth and shared purpose which give him the strength to throw his last spear. Hector hits the shield (Achilles has already tried and missed), but the spear falls far away to the ground. With the words 'far back', we are embarking on a series of losses: first goes the spear, then Deiphobus. Hector does not immediately realize what is happening. He reacts with frustrated answer, as if he was still in control of the situation, or rather, as if there still was a situation to speak of. Then comes line 294, and with it that deadly moment where all of a sudden the narrative grinds to a halt and the impending doom becomes tangible.
In the face of death
There is no reaction from Achilles, in fact he has altogether dropped out of the picture and will not come back into it until much later. In the meantime, all we see is Hector standing alone, in abjection. No motion; and no spear. At this point we need help. We desperately need another spear, and, more importantly, we need a living soul to lend support, to inject talk and warmth and meaning into this horrific moment. Hector calls out for Deiphobus; and the narrative voice itself calls with him. Three different verbs are mobilized (lift his voice, call aloud, ask) the last without connecting particles, as if to mark Hector's growing desperation. This is not only a big shout for a big spear, but also a last attempt to feel the closeness of someone with whom to exchange words and feelings. Hector has so often given that sort of help. Now that he needs it himself, he gets no answer, only an echo: 'but he, Deiphobus, was not near him'. The accident of a spear gone missing has escalated into a total loss of human contact: when someone is 'not near', one knows that one is alone.
Hector calls out in vain; there is no-one to hear him. And while he still struggles to make himself heard one last time, another call has gone out, silent, mysterious, and deadly. Hector hears it and understands immediately: the gods have summoned him to his death. This reversal of caller and called is the first in a row of other such reversals,which bring home the full extent of Hector's delusion and the sense of loss it leaves behind. Whereas he thought that Deiphobus, the hero, was with him, he was deceived by Athena, a god. There is a lesson to be learnt here about the difference between gods and heroes. Further, Deiphobus is not near, but death is. Indeed, Hector adds that death is 'not far', as if to render more painful his own disappointment about the absence of his brother. Death is not far, and there is no escape. The negations ('not' ... 'not') accumulate with overwhelming force. The world around Hector joins forces against him.
What is left for Hector
Finally, there comes the realization that the gods, too, have forsaken him. Zeus, and the son of Zeus, Apollo, have long thought it better this way, despite all appearances. Throughout the Iliad, Hector is often called, and it is not so long ago that we have seen Zeus shedding tears over him. Now that the two gods, father and son, have abandoned the prince and death and fate are close, he realizes that his end has long been 'pleasing' to them. The repeated word 'now' tells of Hector's alienation from his past life. He has made the break; things look new and different 'now'. Indeed, for his dear ones Hector has already died, for he talks about himself in a way in which Homeric narrative usually refers to dead people: 'fate is upon me'. Is there anything still left for him? There is, to the surprise of the many readers who have marvelled at the two lines that follow. After Hector has accepted his death as something that is happening 'now', he turns to the future, and it is at this point that he discovers a new sense of human closeness. Life will continue. There will be people for whom he can die even after all else has been lost. Epic fame, kleos, for the dying Hector, is not primarily a way of living up to his potential as a warrior or a means of compensating for his untimely death (as is the case for Achilles). Hector's resolve to acquire fame at the moment of his death is above all a quest for new human contact, this time with us, his future audience. We will be there to hear his story, and it is to us that Hector finally turns the warmth and the longing for human contact which have characterized him during his short life.
Johannes Haubold is a Research Fellow at Girton College, Cambridge. His book on the role of the people in Homer is shortly to be published by Cambridge University Press.Contact
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