The Honor found in Faithfulness

The concepts of honor and glory in the Odyssey are so different than they are in the Iliad.  In the Iliad, it’s implied that they way to gain glory and honor is through battle; through your fighting skills, sort of a “the bigger and stronger you are, the better” mentality.  In the Odyssey, we see a totally different way of winning glory and recognition for all of time.  Odysseus is gaining glory all through the book through his mental skills rather than brute strength, but what I find really interesting is what the ghost of Achilleus states when talking about Penelope, “How good was proved the heart that is in blameless Penelope, Ikarios’ daughter, and how well she remembered Odysseus, her wedded husband.  Thereby the fame of her virtue shall never die away, but the immortals will make for the people of earth a thing of grace in the song for prudent Penelope.”  That sounds a lot like gaining honor and glory throughout the ages to me… Was it then possible for women to gain glory eternal as well as the men?  Perhaps, as we can see a new theme of honor weaving throughout the Iliad, the theme that states that faithfulness in trials is a sort of honor as well.  From Eumaios to Penelope, we realize this new idea that faithfulness is every bit as honorable as war.  Maybe that’s another reason Odysseus wanted to come home: because his faithfulness to his people, to his homeland.  The keeping of responsibilities is a different kind of honor than that found in battle, but it seems to be even more appreciated by these war-weary men and ghosts of men than the greatest suit of armor stolen from the mightiest of the Trojans.

P.S: I commented on Gary Hamner’s post, “The Bow Test.”