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The Hero’s Journey

Homeric Greek

κλέος

Kleos

kleos

Report, rumor, glory: that which is heard. Glory is acoustic.

Etymology

κλέος: rumor, report, glory, that which is heard. Related to κλύω, to hear, from PIE *ḱléwos (Beekes, Chantraine). Cognates include Sanskrit śravas. An etymological relation to hearing is not a complete definition: Homeric usage still has to be read.

Historical usage

Achilles in the Iliad chooses kleos over a long obscure life. Odysseus wants both kleos and nostos, and the Odyssey shows the collision.

Later development

Gregory Nagy and others have treated kleos as the fame conferred by epic performance itself. That is a theory of the poems as machines of memory, not a Homeric glossary entry.

Why it matters here

When Odysseus shouts his name at Polyphemus, kleos is the hunger that reopens the sea. Glory is not a medal pinned at the end. It is a risk taken in the middle.

Stories that hold this word

Relationship type is not optional

A word present in a source text is not the same as a later critical term applied to that story.

  • In the source text

    The Odyssey

    Wanted together with nostos. The shout of the name spends it.

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