O shining Odysseus, never try to console me for dying. I would rather follow the plow as thrall to another man...

>O shining Odysseus, never try to console me for dying. I would rather follow the plow as thrall to another man, one with no land allotted him and not much to live on, than be a king over all the perished dead

What did he mean by this?

He wanted to get plowed by Odyssey man but he died instead

Achilles meant that Life, warm and palpitating, is regardless of whatever trying circumstances the.. thing.

He was renouncing kleos... kind of a big deal coming from Achilles.

What translation?

Thats what i thought when i read it. A bit shocked that Homer would do that to his greatest hero

Lattimore

Anything is better than death and they believed in Hades and that it was essentially what christians think of hell ie torture for all your wrong doings in life. If you read the republic socrates discusses how they fear dying

Being dead sucks.

I feel like Achilles lives in regret because he doesn't get to experience or see his own immortal glory and fame. He sits alone in Hades not knowing whats happening in the mortal world while people honor his name and sing songs about him.

No.

Achilles commanded a cadre of men there in the Elysium Fields. He made it, he was in 'heaven'. Though he still believes that life on the surface was so much better because it was real. Everything that happens down in Hades doesn't matter. Consequences no longer matter--hey, they don't really exist. It's eternal recess hour. He yearned for the seriousness of reality and the glory of real battles where real limbs can be lopped off.

And that is true.

Living is always better than death.

So is Achilles a existentialist?

Achilles was saying he would rather be the absolute lowest member of society ("thrall" in this translation), even lower than a slave, (because at least a slave has a household that he belongs too) than to be the greatest of all the dead.

I don't think he renounces kleos outright, just kleos through death

>He was renouncing kleos... kind of a big deal coming from Achilles.
That's a bit of a leap, he's saying how shit being dead is.

Yes, but at the same time that's a meme. Existentialism is thrown around a bit too much

Why don't these great founders of western civilization ever have pants on?

I feel like Odysseus should relate really; he didn't want to go to Troy; all he ever really wanted was the simple life. Sure he displays some care for Kleos in the odyssey, but I think that's just a consequence of spending a decade in that environment, and feeling, on his return home after 20 years, that it ought to have all been for something.

Pants are for barbarians.

>thinking a poetic description of the grave is the Greek after life

Get out

Agreed, because he is happy to hear about his sons kleos.

Ο πολυμήχανε Οδυσσέα, μη προσπαθήσεις να με παρηγορήσεις λόγο του θανατού μου.

Wasn't he already loved by his people as a King? There was no need for Kleos if he only wanted a peaceful Life. Or else he wouldn't have spend 10 years traveling.

The continuation of his disillusionment with the warrior ideal, contempt for what had been his primary goal in life the attainment of kleos and subsequent soul searching he displayed in the embassy scene only broken by the death of patroclus and his emotional response.

"I don't think this semen slurping afterlife is for me."

>implying the Greek life was any less semen slurping