The greatest warrior who ever lived was told, after his death, that he should be happy.

His answer is one of the most devastating things ever written...

Achilles had been given a choice while alive: a long, quiet, forgotten life at home, or a short one at Troy that would make his name immortal. He chose glory. He chose to die young and be remembered forever.

In the Odyssey, Odysseus goes down into the land of the dead, and Achilles comes to meet him. Odysseus tries to comfort him. He tells him he has nothing to mourn:

"For of old, when thou wast alive, we Argives honored thee even as the gods, and now that thou art here, thou rulest mightily among the dead. Wherefore grieve not at all that thou art dead, Achilles."

You are the most blessed man who ever lived, he says. You were worshipped in life, and now you are a king among the dead. What is there to grieve?

Achilles answers immediately:

"Nay, seek not to speak soothingly to me of death, glorious Odysseus. I should choose, so I might live on earth, to serve as the hireling of another, of some portionless man whose livelihood was but small, rather than to be lord over all the dead that have perished."

He would rather be a day labourer, working someone else's field, for a master so poor he can barely feed him. He would take that life over ruling every soul that ever died...

Achilles chose to die young so that his name would live forever. And then, in the Odyssey, Homer let him speak from the other side of that choice. And this is his answer, to Odysseus and to us: being remembered is not the same as being alive. And the ordinary day you are living right now is the thing the greatest hero in the world would trade eternity to have back.

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