Who is the hero? He does not belong to the most ancient times – to a time populated by dwarves, ogres and witches, the time of magic and cave paintings, in which the community paints the beasts it will hunt (and rarer and stranger beasts too – think of the extraordinary creatures of Lascaux ...) There is as yet a common horizon, this is a horizontal world, a world that has no sundered itself from the natural immensity, from the immanence of the natural realm. The hero appears by shattering this horizon – he is the transgressor, the one who tears up immanence.
To fight, to conquer – the hero lives in the glory of his acts, in the splendour of immediate action. It is possible to begin, to find a firmness from which to leap into the world, to accomplish deeds. But this presumes that another experience of the world, revealed in the most ancient tales, has disappeared. No more dwarfs and witches – now is the time for light, for a revelation which admits of no division. Essence and appearance are joined in the act; the name of the hero suffices only to name the most brilliant of heroic deeds.
But the hero’s name depends upon the song in which he is celebrated. After the feast, the bard comes forward to sing; in the song, the hero lives. Didn’t the heroes of the Wars of Homer’s poem know their fate? Hector says that before he dies he will accomplish something great 'whereof even men yet to be born shall hear’. Agamemnon says 'even men yet to be born shall hear' of the shame of the Achaeans' retreat from Troy. The heroes know their reward lies in posterity; their names will resound after they die. Thus, the hero owes his existence to the telling, the song, to the language in which his deeds are repeated. True, the hero is unique – he has a name, and a unique glory as the bearer of this name that is sung in the great hall. A uniqueness born of the splendour of an act that his name substantialises, and this is the miracle, the surprise of heroism: a name can attach itself to such great deeds.
A human being can be marvellous: this is what the epic rhapsody celebrates as it repeats the name of the hero, begining the tale again, over and again, embellishing it, transforming it even as it is yet the same tale. Sing of the Pandavas in the forest again! Sing the story of the Rama one more time! Tell us of Krishna’s deeds! It is true, Rama, Krishina, and the Pandava brothers name avatars, or men who can claim divine descent. Perhaps one should think of Heracles and Archilles instead – of Roland and Cid....
Still, the epic is a tale without beginning or end. An epic which must end as history begins (‘and then darkness fell over India ...). The hero does not belong to history. His time is passed – who now is capable of a deed which flashes out through heaven and earth? Who can lend his acts to the memory of the epic? Yet the hero exists in the tale and this is the condition of his existence: he is alive in the retelling of the tale – alive in the presence he has for the listener in the great hall.
Some say the Trojan and Theban wars were caused by Zeus in order to end the Heroic Age. In the Odyssey, it already seems the Trojan wars already belong to another era. All, even Ulysses, are keen to hear songs of Troy. And isn’t it knowledge of Troy that the Sirens promise to bestow? It is already, with the Odyssey, a time for song. Soon, the hero’s name will be eclipsed by the name of the singer. The bard steps out of obscurity and anonymity to lay claim to Achilles.
Now the act belongs to the bard (the author). Literature begins. Does the singer become a hero in turn? Is it necessary, now, to write rather than act – or to act and then write, recording one’s exploits? Must one create one’s own legend? Eventually, the hero is replaced by the adventurer, the novel is on the horizon. It is a question, once again, of the horizontal, of the common horizon ...