A Glorious Death

It is a strange aspect in humanity that we desire the most abstract of concepts and the most unrealistic goals we can think of. A reoccurring ‘fad’ throughout the centuries (although perhaps it is now beginning to die out, as we introduce more brutal weaponry that takes away any aspects of chivalry that might once have been present) is the desire for a glorious death.

Much of the ‘glorious death’ desire may be traced back in time, and one of the most famous pieces of literature focusing on these deaths is the Iliad – but more so the entire story of Troy, rather than the select aspects Homer chose to tell. These warriors are awarded their glorious deaths because they are fighting for an ideal rather than money, or kingdom or kings; they are fighting for beauty itself, to bring Helen back to Sparta, or to hold her in Troy. They are also young, to allow themselves to be snatched from life in their prime so they do not have to suffer growing old, feeble, infirm – and they go down, always fighting, never pleading.

Hektor had a glorious death, as with Akhilleus and their names are remembered throughout time and the words whispered of the glory they achieved – the immortality they gained in their deaths. They are the embodiment of this human desire, and many soldiers in the thousands of years that followed, sought desperately to be remembered; to do an ‘Akhilleus’ or a ‘Hektor’.

If you speak to a young child who is playing, more often than not they will be playing a war game where there is no blood and no gore, but clean and glorious death – and they are not entirely adverse to ‘dying’ themselves, as long as they are allowed to take down three quarters of the imaginary enemy army first. This is an ingrained part of our psyche – or, perhaps, more accurately, the male psyche; death is welcome, as long as you will be remembered forever as a hero, as one who died surrounded by fame.

Perhaps those who are seeking a glorious death – to live fast and die young – should note, however, that in some versions of the story of Troy, Helen had actually escaped to Egypt, and in Troy there was nothing but a body-double; an illusion – and those soldiers who had lived and fought and died for her, found nothing but twisted air and trickery.