i always heard in that doors’ song, “riders on the storm” a lyric: “hector out alone.” maybe he was being intentionally ambiguous… because that’s really what it sounded like to me; but checking into it, it looks like what he wrote is, “an actor out on loan.”
the reason i thought it was a good line is that he says, “a killer’s on the road/ his brain is squirmin’ like a toad,” etc. and then this thing about hector. that does inspire fear and the storm… because achilles is the killer and hector must go out alone to meet him, for honor, because fate will have achilles exact revenge for the loss of patroklos. and hector knows to step up and meet this juggernaut… because that’s what warriors do. but achilles is a force, more than a human being… a literary force, a tendency, part of greece’s spirit thundering down the war plane in a charriot. but he knows, from the beginning, that he is one breath, one hair, a simple small seed of a thought, away from stepping out of the cycle of history and seeing this fault: that he has nothing of forgiveness in his blood and that that is what his blood most covets: to forgive… that it would be better to forgive than lose life in massive volume because of a woman. it is, however, his woman in question and the interminable path of history will not wander far from this tenent: vengeance is mine. i think that’s a fair way of capturing vengeance: as “mine.” that is the entirety of the problem basically. if it were not MY woman agamemnon took, i would feel much less excited about bowling into a war. vengeance is mine: i get to exact it, keep it, relish it… but also, abstractly, “mine” signifies that it is not the will of a community or populace, necessarily. but here, in this storm, achilles is beyond the woman: he is out to kill for revenge upon his cousin’s death. there is no word anyone could utter to waylay his hand against hector. that is true cause for fear: out alone on the road, about to face achilles… not only because you will die, but because he will then drag you across the planes, trying to desecrate your body before all, giving you no respect. hector out alone.
and the cycle of vengeance continues to this day. one could imagine any host of scenarios that it continues: hector’s infant son grows up and learns of achilles and the greeks, for instance. it might be said that this fear (of the abstract achilles) keeps one on one’s toes. but ending the cycle holds even more power: forgiving one’s enemy holds its own kind of incendiary quality. “i hate you, but i can hold my hand back.” now the contest is one of peace. but that’s just what i say. what if i were achilles and hector killed my cousin? i’m sure i could do nothing but beat down the trojan gate and slay this foreign rampart, make the whole kingdom of troy drop a knee. and thus men continue to be born into a cycle of creation and destruction, without ever really having the peace of mind that one can have one’s woman, one’s garden, one’s peace until time separates this costume of flesh once again from our souls… because even if i or you achieve this peace, achilles is still there, and he might come knocking… perhaps for the sole reason that you are good.