PROPHECY: Sacred Troy must die, he said!

MONDAY, JUNE 17, 2024

Is history rhyming this year? It's one of western literature's first great scenes. It's part of a wider collection of scenes, involving an array of memorable characters.

We refer to the scene, in the Iliad's Book Six, where "Hector of the flashing helmet" issues an accurate prophecy.

Hector was a prince of Troy. His father, Priam, was the king of that wealthy walled city, which has been under siege for more than nine years as the famous "poem of war" begins.

By most assessments, Hector is the most upstanding character in the Iliad. According to Greek mythology, the gods had given his sister the gift of prophecy, but only with an attendant curse—her prophecies, though accurate, would never be believed. 

That said, Cassandra is barely mentioned in the Iliad. It's Hector who serves as a prophet, right there in Book Six, still early in the poem.

Heading off to a fight from which he wouldn't necessarily return, Hector rejects the plea by Andromache, "his warm, generous wife," that he remain safely behind magnificent Troy's high walls.

In his reply, Hector gives voice to the ancient warrior ethic—an ancient ethic which is bred deep in our species' bones. Also this:

As he rejects the plea of his generous wife, he issues an accurate prophecy. What follows is a small but telling part of what he says:

I would die of shame to face the men of Troy
and the Trojan women trailing their long robes
if I would shrink from battle now, a coward.
Nor does the spirit urge me on that way.
I've learned it all too well. To stand up bravely,
always to fight in the front ranks of Trojan soldiers.
winning my father great glory, glory for myself.
For in my heart and soul I also know this well:
the day will come when sacred Troy must die,
Priam must die and all his people with him...

The day will come when sacred Troy must die! So says Hector to his wife, as part of a much longer, brutal prophecy.

As every future Greek citizen knew, Hector had issued an accurate prophecy. His prophecy included the fate of his own father "and all his people with him." 

(He also prophesied what would happen to his wife after sacred Troy had died. We'll show you that startling part of his prophecy before the week is through.)

At any rate, The day will come when sacred Troy must die! We'll admit it:

We awoke, this past Saturday morning, recalling that sacred line. In the current staging of this ancient story, the role of Priam is being played by President Biden, who either will, or possibly won't, get re-elected this year.

Can President Biden get re-elected? We often find it hard to believe that he will—but then too, he certainly might. 

That said, also this:

We've long been told, in Blue America, that if President Biden falls, "our democracy" will likely fall with him. According to that ubiquitous prophecy, our democracy, such as it is, is likely to die.

That prophecy has been widely issued within our own Blue America. As such, a basic question arises:

Might Blue America, along with its professed ideals, start to meet the fate of Troy before the year is through?

Back to the ancient text:

By the end of the Iliad, it's clear that Hector's prophecy will turn out to be accurate. Hector has been killed in combat by Achilles. His body has been dragged through the dust before the walls of Troy as his father looks on.

It's clear that Hector's aim was true. How about the corresponding prophecy we hear on Morning Joe?

At this site, we continue to shrink from the pain of watching Blue America's "thought leaders" as they attempt to discuss the current election campaign. Beyond that, we hold to our own deathless bromide: 

Everything we ever needed to know we learned from reading the Iliad.

The Iliad is full of brilliant storytelling. It's full of brilliantly shaped dramatic scenes—narrations engineered through hundreds of years of the familiar folk process. 

By way of contrast:

Here in Blue America, our attempts at conducting a discourse have become an embarrassing mess. Our discourse has long since come to resemble a clown show, in ways which we, the people of Blue America, may not be equipped to notice.

It's been that way for at least forty years. We just keep coming back for more, more from the usual suspects. 

Can President Biden get re-elected? If not—indeed, even if so—what will happen next? 

Concerning the first of those questions, we'll get the start of an answer next week, when the president is scheduled to engage in a debate with Candidate Donald J. Trump.

Assuming the event takes place, can President Biden emerge in viable form as a candidate? 

We were encouraged by video clips from yesterday's event in Hollywood. In the larger sense, we'll all start to find out next week. 

Meanwhile, Blue America's "thought leaders" continue to offer a master class in the limits of human capability. A relentless gong show is offered on Fox. By this point, our own nation's "favorite reporters and friends" are almost as bad.

Here in Blue America, we've descended to the point where we're surreptitiously taping utterly pointless conversations with public figures' wives. Where we're claiming that we need to know who may have zoomed who, on one alleged occasion ten years before, before we can know how to vote.

How the gods on Olympus must laugh at these imitations of life!

Is our Blue America—is our Blue American civilization, as least as we imagine it—destined to meet the fate of sacred Troy by the end of this year? Also, how did we get to the place where that seems like a real possibility?

We'll examine those questions this week, drawing upon western literature's first great surviving text. 

History doesn't repeat itself, we're often told. History doesn't repeat itself, but it frequently rhymes.

At present, we think we might be hearing a bit of rhyming as we consider an ancient text.

In the Iliad, a great and wealthy, civilized city is destined to fall after ten years of a brutal siege—a brutal siege conducted by a brutal invading force. In his lengthy introduction to Robert Fagles' 1990 translation, the late Bernard Knox offered this overview of the contrast between those civilizations:

The first city we hear of in Greek literature is Troy. It is characteristic of the Iliad's tragic viewpoint that this city, the literary prototype of all Greek cities. is to be destroyed. The poem ends before Troy falls, but we are left in no doubt about its fate. 

One of the deep sources of the tragic force of the Iliad is that the city of Troy is doomed, doomed go down in fire and slaughter under the assault of the Achaeans, whose cities are far away and half-forgotten in the long siege, whose home for ten years has been the raw world of tent shelters and beached ships.

[...]

Inside Troy the manners of civilized life are preserved; there are restraints on anger, there is courtesy to opponents, kindness to the weak—things that have no place in the armed camp on the shore. 

[...]

But Troy is not at peace: it is under siege, and by men who mean to raze it from the face of the earth. The arts of peace are useless now. Troy will not be saved by the magnanimity and tender-heartedness of Priam...If it is to survive it will do so because of the devotion, courage and incessant efforts of one man, Priam's son Hector. 

Back then, this fight was all about access to "Helen, radiance of woman." In Blue America, we recently conducted a criminal trial about one candidate's reported access to Stormy Daniels. 

More on sexual politics to follow. For now, we'll offer this:

When Hector falls, it's clear that Troy itself is going to fall. Troy is a magnificent, civilized city, but it's been under siege, for almost ten years, by a gang of lunatics who want to get Helen back.

We've shown you only one small part of Professor Knox's portrait. That said, has history started to rhyme?

At substantial length, Professor Knox creates a portrait of the civilizations which are at war in the Iliad. His portrait rhymes with the way we Blue Americans tend to portray our failing nation's current political dispute.

Over here in Blue America, we portray ourselves as civilized, nuanced, intelligent, decent. We persistently see ourselves as under siege by a group of modern-day Achaeans—by a gang of deplorables, "barbarians at the gates."

You can assess that portrait of Red America as you will. But is history possibly starting to rhyme, in a way which might be instructive?

Hector knew that Troy would die. Over here in Blue America, is "our democracy" destined to die if President Biden loses to the invaders this year?

On Morning Joe (and everywhere else), they keep repeating that prophecy. Depending on what happens this year, that prophecy could of course turn out to be painfully accurate.

Is there something we can learn from the western world's first great poem? At the very least, can we elevate our frame of reference as we wait to see what happens next week, and in the years to come? 

Tomorrow: As told to Hector's wife