Kleos Aphthiton

Kleos aphthiton — “unfailing glory,” “undying glory” — is the archaic Greek term for the permanence conferred on the hero by the song that carries his name across generations. Kleos is not fame in the colloquial sense; it is, etymologically and functionally, that which is heard, the speech that survives the speaker. The epithet aphthiton — “not wasting away,” “unfailing” — specifies the permanence as the permanence of epic itself.

Nagy’s Best of the Achaeans makes the term central. Achilles speaks it at the hinge of his great decision: “ôleto men moi nostos, atar kleos aphthiton estai / I have lost a safe return home, but I will have unfailing glory” (Iliad IX 413). The hero chooses song over return, the permanence of what is heard over the warmth of the life he would live. Nagy sharpens the term by distinguishing it from tîmê: where tîmê names the honor paid to the hero in local cult at his tomb, kleos names the honor paid to him in Panhellenic song (Nagy 1979, Ch. 10).

“Heroes are generically distinguished from gods by virtue of not having a bios ‘lifespan’ that is aphthitos” (Nagy 1979, Ch. 10 §10). The hero’s kleos is the only thing about him that is unfailing. The Jungian reading of the hero as the figure who accepts mortification in order to make his life a transmissible form finds in kleos aphthiton its classical vocabulary: the song is what the hero’s death produces, and the song is what endures.

Relationships

• hero-cult
• hero-myth
• hero-journey
• iliad
• monomyth

Primary sources

• nagy-best-of-achaeans (Nagy 1979)
• iliad IX 413 (Homer)