As I may have mentioned, I am currently re-reading The Odyssey - one of the pillars on which Western literature is built. In Book 11, Odysseus (our hero) makes a trip to Hades, at the direction of the witch Circe, to get directions to help him return home to Ithaca. He can only get these directions from some dead seer. Circe instructs him on how to manage the dead, and it involves slaying an animal and allowing its blood to drain into a trench. The dead can then drink from this trench and communicate with Odysseus.
He talks to the seer and gets his directions but then he wants to catch up with some of his old comrades from the Trojan War, who have since passed. He catches up with Agamemnon who was ambushed and slain by his wife and her lover upon his return to Greece. He also sees Achilles, the great hero of The Iliad who killed Hector. Early on in the Iliad, Achilles was famously offered the choice between a long and forgotten existence and a much shorter heroic one, after which his name would be remembered forever. It's obvious which path he chose.
When he sees Achilles, Odysseus suggests, "I see, you lord it over the dead in all your power. So grieve no more at dying, great Achilles."
To which, Achilles responds, "No winning words about death to me, shining Odysseus! By god, I'd rather slave on earth for another man - some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive - than rule down here over all the breathless dead."
Contrast that to Milton's famous quote from Lucifer in Paradise Lost: "Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heaven."
I prefer Achilles zest for life, but what do you expect out of the Devil?
He talks to the seer and gets his directions but then he wants to catch up with some of his old comrades from the Trojan War, who have since passed. He catches up with Agamemnon who was ambushed and slain by his wife and her lover upon his return to Greece. He also sees Achilles, the great hero of The Iliad who killed Hector. Early on in the Iliad, Achilles was famously offered the choice between a long and forgotten existence and a much shorter heroic one, after which his name would be remembered forever. It's obvious which path he chose.
When he sees Achilles, Odysseus suggests, "I see, you lord it over the dead in all your power. So grieve no more at dying, great Achilles."
To which, Achilles responds, "No winning words about death to me, shining Odysseus! By god, I'd rather slave on earth for another man - some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive - than rule down here over all the breathless dead."
Contrast that to Milton's famous quote from Lucifer in Paradise Lost: "Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heaven."
I prefer Achilles zest for life, but what do you expect out of the Devil?
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