Hector

At this a wail arose---this from Astyanax, Hector's infant son, frightened by the cadence and Hector's plumed helm. Hector turned to face his son and spoke to calm the boy.

"My son...fear not this awful visage, born of war, but rather look beneath to see the father you once knew. Today, a warrior he must be, to call down on death on fathers, sons, and brothers. A fortnight hence, to put aside the chains of war and don the cloak of peace, to cast aside the spear and shield and take up saw and plow. To build a home, and sit by hearthfires, never more be troubled by battle's clamor."

On this speech, Astyanax cooed and calmed. Hector turned Andromache his wife, and said "This I must do, and when I leave I will not turn back, for while it is nothing to face a foe intent on death, to leave you here to wait is far too great a burden to bear. But this I swear on Priam's line: this bloody game shall soon be ended, and never more shall we three be parted." Hector donned his helm again, and when he left, he did not look back.

In the days and weeks to come, greet deeds would take place beneath the walls of Troy. But those are stories for another day; this one is done.

Notes

I hadn't planned to compete in Bardic for 2014, thinking that I was likely to be too busy for 2014-2015 to serve. However, I realized this was based on an uncharacteristically optimistic assessment: in particular, that everything I'd planned for 2014-2015 would come to pass. A more realistic assumption would be that many things I'd planned would fail, which would leave me plenty of times. (I don't try to fail...but I generally plan on the assumption that I will fail 9 times out of 10. It's not the failure that's the problem...it's the rare occasions when my hit rate is much higher than 10% that are the problem...)

This is a story that was kicking around my mind for some years before I finally completed it. The basic idea came to me in late 2012, and I'd hoped to prepare it for the Bardic Championships of 2013. Unfortunately between this that and the other, I was neither able to complete the story nor make the event. On the plus side, it gave me something to do at Pensic 42 (our first Pensic this millennium, and the first Pensic ever for the kids). If you don't mind a bit of literary psychoanalysis, the Iliad is really about two warrior archetypes: Achilles and Hector. Both of them are great warriors, and will overcome anyone they meet in the field; when they meet, Achilles happens to have the upper hand, but it's not by very much. The difference is that Hector can put it down. In modern terms, Achilles suffers from severe PTSD, and from the get-go, treats every conflict as a fight with his mortal enemy who must be destroyed. Hector, on the other hand, can switch it off. I wanted to portray the switch, and the best point seemed to be when his infant son Asytanax started to cry when he saw Hector in his armor (including the helm which, if you're an infant, can look pretty scary). Hector immediately switches from warlord to father.

The hardest lines to write were the ones where Hector described what he'd do to the Greeks. The goal was to be so over the top that grown men would be disturbed by the extent of Hector's rage: Hector not only intends to kill all the invaders, but then go to their homeland wipe them out utterly, enslaving their women, killing their children, salting the fields so nothing would grow, and so on.

Maestra Sol y Cantor was kind enough to tape the performance and post it, so you can see what it looks like "live". For those who want to dissect performances: this is a piece which, to be effective, must run the audience through the entire range of human emotions. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, I didn't quite manage to get as much rage and wrath out of Hector as I wanted: in fact, I dropped an entire section, without which the depth of Hector's rage is lost.