It is plain, however, that Homer has represented Hector as keenly feeling and resenting, not only his brother’s cowardice, but his sensuality. Twice does he address him as mad with lust, and as a deceiver of women[992]: out of his five speeches addressed to Paris, only one is not reproachful; and in the only one which extends beyond a few lines he barbs his reproaches on the score of cowardice by fully setting forth his guilt, both morally and as towards his country, in that, being a coward, he was also a ravisher[993]. The charge, however, also takes a more specific form. We see that Hector was greatly delighted, ἐχάρη μέγα when his rebuke[994] had stirred up Paris to offer to stake the whole issue on a single combat with Menelaus. But it is said, why, when the battle had been lost, did not Hector enforce the terms of the bargain? The answer seems to be this. We stand here at a juncture in the poem, where its theurgy supersedes its human mechanism. It is presumable that this very thing was about to be done, when the order of events was interrupted by the counsel of the gods. Agamemnon had at the close of the Third Book in due course demanded Helen. Jupiter immediately apprehended the consequences; he saw that if faith were kept, Achilles would neither be avenged nor glorified; and he accordingly invited the assembly on Olympus to determine, whether Helen should be rendered back or not. When this had been settled in the negative, the question was how to prevent it; and it was done, on the suggestion of Juno, by causing Pandarus to renew the war without the privity of Hector. This shows pretty clearly that the restoration of Helen was about to take place, had not the gods interfered; and therefore amply suffices to relieve Hector from reproach, who, it may be observed, takes no part until, when the armies have been long in conflict, he has been stung by the reproaches of Sarpedon (v. 493). If censure be due to the arrangement, it must be lodged against the Poet, and not against one of his personages, who simply does not appear because there is no part for him to play.
His responsibilities beyond his strength.
Let us now proceed to a somewhat more general view of the character of Hector.
He occupies in the Homeric tradition a place altogether peculiar, as, at the time of the poem, the sole eminently warlike member of an unwarlike family; as the general of a divided and incongruous army; and as singly responsible in chief for the safety of his country, while he has not been invested with the dignity and power of king. As to the first of these points, we have the direct testimony of Homer:
οἶος γὰρ ἐρύετο Ἴλιον Ἕκτωρ[995].
Of his brothers, Deiphobus alone is represented as in any degree deserving or sharing his confidence. Of his relatives, Polydamas appears to have been a rival in the council, Æneas in the succession to political supremacy: and these were the two most considerable persons of the class. It has, I conceive, been shown to be probable, that Paris was his senior[996]; and that he held his place in Troy by merit against age. His uneasy relations with his allies might be inferred from their constituting the great bulk of his force, even were they not more distinctly betokened by the reproach of Sarpedon, and by the speech in which he himself enters on the subject. Together with his power over the army, he had the virtual charge of the safety of the state, and we see signs of his influence there; but yet he did not direct the policy of Troy: for the only important measure, which is recorded as having been taken by the Trojans, namely the rejection of the proposals of Antenor to give back Helen to the Greeks, was taken in his absence and without his knowledge. Thus we see in Hector’s case, abundantly accumulated, the elements of a false position. And, in a word, in order to estimate his character aright, we must keep in full view that inferiority of the Trojans, subjects not less than princes, as respects political genius and organization, to which the Iliad, when carefully examined, bears ample testimony.
Under the weight of public charge, as Agamemnon in the Greek camp, so, and yet more, Hector on the Trojan side, appears to reel; so, and yet more; for, in Hector’s case, political power is crippled by his not being in actual possession of the supreme station, while responsibility is edged and enhanced by his being not only the head to devise, but also the right hand to execute. In neither of the two, however, do we find strong will, definiteness, and constancy of purpose, or unfailing courage. But Agamemnon has the advantage of both wiser counsels around him, and stronger arms than his own near his side. Hector has little aid. Sarpedon alone of the Trojan commanders (for Æneas really does nothing) can be called a warrior of note; and his inferiority to Patroclus, notwithstanding his thorough gallantry, is decorated rather than hidden by the stage machinery of divine consultations on the subject of his death. But as Sarpedon in the field plays a part much inferior to the corresponding one of Diomed or Ajax, so Polydamas, the Nestor of the Trojans, is not equal to his kindly and genial counterpart. Four times he gives his counsel in the field. Twice he prefaces it with personal imputations (xii. 211, and xiii. 726); and when, in the Twelfth Book (211), he recommends the abandonment of the assault on the ships in deference to an omen, feeling and judgment are alike on the side of Hector’s reply, who overturns his augury by the known (though, as they proved, deceitful) counsels of Jupiter, and emphatically pleads against doubtful signs the indubitable dictates of patriotism.
His bright side in the affections.
The prophetic gift, for whatever reason, is assigned pretty largely by Homer to the Trojans. Without entering into the case of Cassandra, it attaches to Helenus, and also (xii. 238) apparently to Polydamas, who undertakes to interpret a sign. Hector himself had the weight of prescience on his breast, for he tells Andromache[997] that he well knows the day of ruin is at hand; and, when he is at the point of death, he prognosticates the coming fate of Achilles. The concentrated strain of his duties and his previsions is too much for the strength of a character which, from the intellectual or dramatic point of view, is impulsive, fluctuating, and unequal, and which must therefore undoubtedly be set down as so far secondary. But when we pass from intellect to moral tone, from διάνοια to ἦθος, we certainly find in Hector one among the most touching, the most human, of all the delineations of masculine character in the Iliad. In him alone has Homer presented to us that most commanding and most moving combination, of a woman’s gentleness and deep affection with warlike and heroic strength. If the hand of Hector was far weaker than that of the son of Peleus, the tempestuous griefs of Achilles do not open to us a character nearly so attractive as the depth of the gentle affections of Hector, and the mildness warmed into such brilliancy by his martial fame. ‘Thy love to me was wonderful; passing the love of women[998].’ The constancy and tenacity of the attachments of Ulysses come out in his relations to Penelope and Telemachus: but, dwelling harmoniously in a character of far broader scope and more varied sensibilities, the peculiar element of a tenderness matching that of woman is the only one they do not contain. Hector is neither a warrior nor a statesman after the primary, that is the Achæan, type: but for a model of intensity and softness in the love of a father and a husband, it is to him that we must repair, in the incomparable scene by the Scæan gate; incomparable, unless we may compare it with that other scene, so near at hand, where the sight of young Polydorus slain, piercing him to the heart, raised him in his last hour to the heights of heroism; and where the interest and sympathy, that he has attracted all along, are absorbed into admiration of the real sublimity of that closing hour, when he resolved to be for ever famous at least in his too certain death.
Probably a main reason why Hector has become the groundwork of the modern Orlando is, that no one of the Homeric heroes exhibits a combination of qualities supplying so appropriate a basis for the character of a Christian hero; a tone so sensibly approximating to that of the gospel. Partly because of those acts of piety towards the Immortals, which can hardly receive in the case of Hector any but a favourable construction, and which drew down the all but unanimous compassion of the Olympian assembly on his remains; but partly also, and yet more, in that mild, just, and tender estimate of character, which not only secured his constant gentleness of demeanour towards Helen, but made him her protector against the acrimony of others, and rendered him considerate and kind even to Paris[999], so soon as he saw him disposed at length to be personally active in the mortal struggle he had brought upon his country. There is, perhaps, no virtue more especially Christian, than the temper which thus equitably and gently makes allowances for human weakness, particularly if it be weakness by the effects of which we ourselves have suffered.