The fear that makes someone run away and shake was described in the first physiopathological analysis on cowardice that Homer gave to one of his characters, the Cretan Idomeneo, in the Book XIII of the “Iliad”. Idomeneo says that the coward and the strong never become confused, since even before taking action, the body of each makes its nature evident. Homer´s character elaborates on the fact that the coward is all movement and nervousness: “His skin turns green, can not stop shaking, moves to and from, his knees buckle beneath him, his heart misses a bit and his teeth grind.” The good warrior, to the contrary, remains impassive both of body and spirit, «looking forward to fight hand-to-hand against the enemy, like if it was a love date.”
Professor Minerva Alganza Roldán, of the department of Greek Studies of the University of Granada, says that all the heros feel fear some time and, to a great extent, overcoming it is the acid test of the characters of the epic: “Among all the princes of the “Iliad”, Alexander-Paris is, without doubt, the clearest embodiment of the coward, the antisocial individual par excellence, as the scene of the duel against Melenao highlights; when Alexander distinguishes his enemy opponent in the first line of the Greek army, he gets scared and moves back, pale and shaking, and hides behind the mass of Trojans.”
According to the lecturer of the University of Granada “it is not a trivial matter that this dissection of warrior´s fear pathology coincides, almost point by point, with that of Sapho in the famous and imitated Ode V about the physiological expressions of love passion and jealousy. Sure enough, when she contemplates the loving intimacy of the beloved girl and his husband like a god, the Homeric epithet of Paris, Sapho´s heart bleeds, she loses sight, gets tongue-tied, has a buzzing in her ears, sweats, shakes and her skin turns pale, greener than grass.”
Professor Minerva Alganza Roldán describes from the epic to social and political changes that cause the transformations… including, of course, the different kinds of cowards and cowardices. Patriot and patriotism: “A new world with vague borders started to make its way –she maintains– where patriotism fell into disuse and sometimes became an atavistic custom or a picturesque curiosity. Political word took refuge in the schools of rhetoric and in the battlefield soldiers from different ethnic groups and languages fought and died in return for money. Some men, immersed in this changing world, –Minerva Alganza says—reflected on the destiny and happiness of individuals and nations and made peace an ideal. They were imperturbable and idle, and they were called sages.”
Reference: Professor Minerva Alganza Roldán
Dpt: Greek Studies.
University of Granada
Phone number: 958 243691 / 243694
E-mail: malganza@ugr.es
