X FATE AND FREE WILL IN GREEK LITERATURE 1 BY ABBY LEACH To the minds of the many, emphatic iteration and reiteration of a statement have all the force of truth; for people in general are prone to avoid the trouble, exertion, and close thinking that result in logical conclusions, and take instead the easier course of accepting ready-made opinions. When a popular belief, however at variance with fact, has thus become fairly established, being asserted many times by many writers,2 to dislodge it is no easy task; and there may be difficulty even when we have to do with so evident a perversion of the truth as the widespread notion that the Greeks were fatalists. What do we mean by fatalism? We mean that man is not master of his fate, but that his fate masters him-that, do what he may, he cannot escape his destiny. Fate is irresistible, unconquerable; and its decrees are absolute. The Turk is a fatalist; he goes into battle with the conviction that, if death is to be his portion, be he brave man or coward, death will come all the same. For him, this fatalism is brightened and cheered by a hope which is an incentive to deeds of daring, for he believes that if he meets his doom with heroic valor, he will be amply rewarded in the world to come; in itself, however, the doctrine tends to inaction and despair. Of Napoleon the Third as a fatalist, Zola has given a wonderful por [1 This article, which first appeared with the title, Fatalism of the Greeks, in the American Journal of Philology 36. 373-401, is reprinted with the consent of the editor of that journal, Dr. Gildersleeve. The author, Miss Leach, is Professor of Greek in Vassar College. With her kind permission, certain changes have been made in the selection so as to bring it into conformity with the rest of the present volume. In particular, numerical references have been relegated to the footnotes, and passages in Greek replaced by English. Here and there, the material has been slightly condensed or abridged.-EDITOR.] [2 Compare, for example, Moulton, The Ancient Classical Drama (1898), p. 93: 'Destiny is the main idea inspiring Ancient Drama; whatever may have been the religion of Greek life, the religion reflected in Greek Tragedy is the worship of Destiny.'-EDITOR.] ... He trayal in The Downfall. Whether Zola represents Napoleon truthfully or not is beside the point; what concerns us is the description of a fatalist in the person of the hero. Take the passage where the Emperor presents himself on the battlefield: 'Entirely unattended, he rode forward into the midst of the storm of shot and shell, calmly, unhurriedly, with his unvarying air of resigned indifference, the air of one who goes to meet his appointed fate. rode forward, controlling his charger to a slow walk. For the space of a hundred yards he thus rode forward, then halted, awaiting the death he had come there to seek. The bullets sang in concert with a music like the fierce autumnal blast; a shell burst in front of him and covered him with earth. He maintained his attitude of patient waiting. His steed, with distended eyes and quivering frame, instinctively recoiled before the grim presence who was so close at hand and yet refused to smite horse or rider. At last the trying experience came to an end, and the Emperor, with his stoic fatalism, understanding that his time was not yet come, tranquilly retraced his steps. ' G. H. Lewes thus defines fatalism: 'Fatalism says that something must be; and this something cannot be modified by any modification of the conditions." The Century Dictionary says: 'Fatalism . . . does not recognize the determination of all events by causes, in the ordinary sense; holding, on the contrary, that a certain foreordained result will come about, no matter what may be done to prevent it.' John Stuart Mill thus writes on the subject: 'A fatalist believes, or half believes (for nobody is a consistent fatalist), not only that whatever is about to happen will be the infallible result of the causes which produce it, . . . but, moreover, that there is no use in struggling against it, that it will happen however we may strive to prevent it."5 The natural outcome is as Milman has described it: 'It was vain to resist the wrath of God; and so a wretched fatalism bowed to a more utter prostration the cowed and spiritless race. Fatalism benumbs and paralyzes the will, until apathy and stoical submission are the only resource. To accept the inevitable without a murmur, with passionless calm to wrap one's mantle around oneself, and with bowed head to say impassively: 'Kismet'—'It is 3 Zola, The Downfall (La Débâcle), Part 2, Ch. 1. 4 Lewes, Problems of Life and Mind (Boston, 1880) 1. 284. 5 Mill, A System of Logic (1872) 2.425. • Milman, History of Latin Christianity 5. 9. ordered' this is fatalism, and this is what a fatalistic belief engenders. That so deadening a doctrine as this can be attributed to a people like the Greeks seems more than strange. When we look at the Hellenes, and especially the Athenians-for Athens represented to Hellas, and represents to us, the highest reach of Greek thought and feeling-what do we find as their characteristics? Are they not alertness of mind, power to make independent judgments, a spirit of adventure and unresting activity, a proud self-confidence that made them dare and do what seemed impossible, and a courage buoyant after direst disaster? We turn to the matchless description given by Thucydides in what purports to be the funeral oration of Pericles over those who had fallen in battle in the first year of the Poloponnesian war: "The great impediment to action is, in our opinion, not discussion, but the want of that knowledge which is gained by discussion preparatory to action; for we have a peculiar power of thinking before we act, and of acting, too; whereas other men are courageous from ignorance, but hesitate upon reflection. And they are surely to be esteemed the bravest spirits, who, having the clearest sense both of the pains and pleasures of life, do not on that account shrink from danger." 'We have compelled every land and every sea to open a path for our valor, and have everywhere planted eternal memorials of our friendship and of our enmity.' 'They resigned to hope their unknown chance of happiness, but in the face of death they resolved to rely upon themselves alone."9 The emphasis here is upon the intelligent calculation that entered into Athenian warfare. The deity of these Greeks is Athena, the goddess of wisdom and skill, who teaches men to put their strength and energy at the service of intelligence, to plan and contrive, to measure dangers and resources, and to count the cost, not rushing into battle in blind fury or with the desperation of those who feel themselves driven on by an unswerving doom. To anything like fatalism their spirit is diametrically opposed. Connoting untiring energy, hopeful courage, belief in one's own powers, confidence in skill and foresight, it has nothing in common with a belief that depresses effort and darkens the soul, giving only the courage of despair, or at best a stoical fortitude. 7 Thucydides 2. 40. Jowett 's translation. 8 Ibid. 2. 41. 9 Ibid. 2. 42. According to Simonides: 'It was due to the valor of these men that smoke did not go up to heaven from the burning of spacious Tegea. Their choice was to leave their children a city flourishing in freedom, and to lay down their own lives in the front of the battle. '10 That is the Greek note, the noble choice that sets life at naught against the priceless treasure of freedom. No fatalism is this, surely. Demosthenes in his matchless speech On the Crown, after according to the Athenians of other days the high praise that they were willing to give themselves to dangers for glory and honor, adds: 'Choosing what was noble and right, for all men's lives have a fixed limit in death, even if they should shut themselves up in a chamber and keep guard; but good men ought to put their hand to all that is noble on every occasion, holding before themselves as a shield. the hope of good, and to bear whatever the god gives, nobly." How does this differ from what we should say ?-'Do what is right, and leave the issue with God.' Not once throughout the eloquent speech is there a word of a fate that held the Athenians in its firm grip, and relentlessly doomed them to defeat and overthrow. Instead: 'If Thessaly had had only one man, and Arcadia one, who had adopted the same policy as I, none of the Hellenes on the further or on the hither side of Thermopylae would have experienced the present evils, but all would have dwelt in their countries, free and autonomous, in perfect fearlessness, in safety and happiness. '12 Are these the words of a man who believes in the resistless oncoming of a dread doom? Again he speaks even more plainly: "The man who feels he has been born only for his parents awaits the death of fate and the natural death, but he who feels he was born for his country will die that he may not see her suffer slavery, and will count the insults and loss of honor that he must bear in an enslaved state more to be feared than death. '13 In other words, the patriot is ready to sacrifice his life on the altar of his country's need, while the stay-athome will not risk his personal safety on any battlefields, but waits ingloriously for death, which comes to all, to come even to him. In no way are we made to feel that the Athenians were foredoomed to defeat, being but puppets in the iron clutch of fate. Instead, Demosthenes portrays in vivid speech the conditions that favored 10 Simonides, fr. 102 (Bergk). 11 Demosthenes, On the Crown 18. 97. 12 Ibid. 18. 304. 13 Ibid. 18. 205. Philip in his aggressions, and in his analysis of the causes that contributed to the final triumph of Macedonia shows himself a statesman of the keenest insight. Of Thucydides Croiset says: 'First of all, he is a philosopher, a man who believes . . . that the events of nature are brought to pass in accordance with regular laws . . . If he speaks of fortune (TÚXn), nowhere has he made it a divinity. It signifies for him only the unforeseen and unknowable. In politics, as in nature, he believes in intelligible causes, purely human, which need to be discovered. '14 Even in the Odyssey, what do we find? In the First Book, beginning with line 32: 'Lo, now, how falsely mortals blame the gods; for they say evils come from us, whereas they, even of themselves, have woes beyond fate ['contrary to fate,' vπèρ μóρov] through their own follies.' Then Zeus tells how he had sent Hermes to warn Aegisthus not to slay Agamemnon or to wed Clytemnestra, lest punishment come to him from Orestes later on, and says that it was because Aegisthus paid no heed, though the warning was given by Hermes himself, that he had to suffer the consequences.15 In the Oedipus at Colonus of Sophocles, a direful threat is pronounced by Oedipus upon Polynices if he should make the intended attack upon Thebes, and Antigone adds her plea: Turn back thy host to Argos with all speed, Polynices replies to his sister: That cannot be. How could I lead again An army that has seen their leader quail? Seeing that she pleads in vain, Antigone then asks: Wilt thou then bring to pass his prophecies, Who threatens mutual slaughter to you both ?18 That is, Polynices, having the power of choice, willed to go, and so sealed his own doom. It is true that he makes the charge: Of this I hold thy Erinys to be the cause.17 14 Croiset, An Abridged History of Greek Literature (tr. Heffelbower), pp. 296, 297. 15 Odyssey 1. 32-43. 16 Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus 1416-1425. Storr's translation. 17 Ibid. 1299. |