My professor in Classical Literature asked us the question when we were talking about a minor soldier who left his wife, whom he recently married, for war. A lot of soldiers lost what could have been their happiness when they left for a war that lasted for twenty years. Twenty years they sacrificed blood and sweat for honor. Twenty years they could have spent back home with their wife and children. Yet they went on with the war for the sake of their family’s safety (but this purpose became mainstream and forgotten once they enter the battlefield and hubris clouded their vision) but mostly, for honor. I understand that it is part of their culture to attain for honor because it is the best choice to be remembered to their future generation. It is true that honor will immortalized them because they know they won’t live forever but they know that their memories on earth will live forever. But what they don’t know, only which they will realize in the end, is the worth of it. In the book, soldiers came from places thousand miles farther than Troy. These soldiers left their family and the life that could have given them happiness. They left everything and lost everything from death. Did they gain honor? Yes they did but they died from pursuing it. Honor is costlier than it sounds because they paid their lives for that. Homer portrayed honor as worthy yet tragic. If you ask me, it’s the road to honor that matters most. Its how you got there that will make people remember you. If you do good things, people will remember you. If you do bad things, people will still remember you. So to gain something, it is your responsibility on how you will pursue it and the worth of it will depend on how you did it.

Labels: advice, happiness, honor, Iliad, immortality, life, literature, loss, school, tragedy

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