The Heroic Death Beneath the Walls of Troy: Before and After Christ

Hector dies twice, firstly in the heroic and secondly in the knightly world. With Homer his death is tragic. For passion, which turns the tide in its own favour, therefore Hector decides to fight with Achilles, is regarded as a mistake, but not moral. Furthermore Homer does not mention the possibility of important life beyond. The most noble eternity is promised by “beautiful death”, which enables the hero, godlike in deeds and appearance, to live on in the memory of the community. Here the body as a medium of actions and an expression of individual is essential. Medieval Hector is completely idealised, so he can not become a victim of passion, which gains negative meaning, but dies because of set of circumstances, that are autonomous. Nevertheless his death isn’t tragic, for tragedy and Heaven or choice cancel each other out. “Beautiful death” is replaced by “aesthetic death”, which denies the body as problematic and stresses out the perfection of soul, which is divine not only in appearance, but also in existence.