Indifference in Immortality

           Within W.B. Yeats’ “Leda and the Swan”, H.D.’s “Helen”, W.H. Auden’s “The Shield of Achilles”, Rosanna Warren’s “The Twelfth Day”, and Louise Gluck’s “The Triumph of Achilles” there is a clear tension between mortals and love versus immortals and indifference.

            In “Leda and the Swan” Yeats portrays the indifference of the gods. In “Helen” H.D. articulates that mortals have the capacity to love and hate. In Warren’s “Twelfth Day” we see how humans grieve and love. In “Triumph” we are told that it is only mortals who love. Finally, in “Shield of Achilles” we are forced to wonder what humanity would be without love. This grouping of rather modern poems, when examined together, perpetuates the idea that humans have the ability to feel love and grief and immortals are more indifferent.      

           Book 6 of the Iliad depicts the temporariness of mortality, “humans generations are like leaves in their seasons./ The wind blows them to the ground, but the tree/ Sprouts new ones when spring comes again” (Iliad, 6.149-51). According to the ideals of these modern poets, having the ability to feel emotion is what it means to be human. 

           Even though I see the point that the above authors are making, I think characterizing the gods as emotionless is a severe and inaccurate statement. I don't believe that the immortals cannot feel, for I don’t think anyone can argue that successfully in the scope of the epic. However, it is like when Patroclus’ immortal horses grieve for him in Book 17, their first encounter with mortality, “Why did we give you …/ To a mortal, while you are deathless and ageless?/ Was it so you could share men’s pain?/ Nothing is more miserable than man” (Iliad, 17. 457-10). Why should immortals subject themselves to human grief when in the blink of an immortal eye the humans will be recycled?

Pledge: Michaela Knipp