Even Achilles, the greatest of the Greek heroes, declares he would rather live an obscure, humble life among the living than reign as the most glorious lord of the dead, undercutting the entire Greek cult of heroic glory.

54:46greatest of all the Akan warriors, Achilles, the man who at the end of the Iliad had killed Hector, the greatest of the Trojan warriors. And Achilles had been offered the choice when he was very young of a life short but full of glory or a long life but living in obscurity. And Achilles tells Adysius, I made a terrible mistake. I went for the short life full of glory, but I would far

55:12rather live off the earth as the surf of another man, some man with a pitiful portion who barely eats out a living, then rule here as the lord of all those who are dead and gone. So to me that is the single most interesting moment of the entire Odyssey because it undermines the cult of the hero and the sort of the emphasis on glory and marshall vigor and

55:36writing your name in neon letters that will never fade and all of that kind of thing. And basically Homer is implying that there is an argument for saying it's a bit like in the Maline Miller book Cersei this is what Tmicus says. It's better to be obscure. It's actually better to have a nice quiet life and no one knows you even exist than to be a great hero and uh you know to be

55:56wreathed in glory and stuff that that is all that that all passes and it's meaningless. >> Yes, that I think that's absolutely what it's saying. But also what is what Achilles is saying essentially is the greatest of all gifts is immortality. You know, you never want to die. If you ever get offered the gift of immortality, you want to embrace it with open arms. I mean that is essentially

56:14what he's saying and that is something that will impact on a decision that Adysius has to make in due course but we will come to that. But do you think Homer genuinely means it that his listeners should have a think about their cult of glory and and all of that or not? I think that um it is one of the things that shadows the Greek devotion to competition, to heroism, to courage,

56:37to glory is the fact that there is no equivalent of the Christian or Muslim heaven for all but the very greatest. That death is a shadowy dull existence where you're a kind of a gibbering shadow um who has to drink blood even to speak. I mean, it's you know, there's there's nothing there. And so it makes the blaze of life all the more kind of glorious. So anyway, as you say, I mean,