The Trojan War

[The Lady of Ithilien]

Now if only we would learn from it.

We do, but according to the measure of what we are, which in its reality is not always pleasing to our sense of what we should be.

It isn't that Homer's heroes died: it is how they individually lived and fought and died that we hold so dear to our hearts. And certainly they would do it all over again without regret, if they knew it would make their names famous even several thousands of years later.

The interesting truth about humanity is that most of us will always embrace a Homer over a Siegfried Sassoon (see http://www.bartleby.com/people/Sassoon.html ).

And that, mon amie, is why we study history.

Ah, Perroquet de Fer, I fear that we really study it only to wield it the better as a powerful weapon in our own wars of domination, whether national, professional or personal. Ajax's selfish suicide is refreshingly direct and honest in comparison to some of the tactics used by the civilized, educated, and similarly selfish world today (as always) to establish the Greater (read 'its own') Good.

No, give me a 'historian' like Homer or Tolkien, whose lies rather bring us face to face with that part of our actual history we are unable to face directly: its truth, base as well as noble, in ourselves.