Heroism
In Our Time
00:00
The Role of Courage in Hymns
The word hero usually applies to warriors of great abilities which are of use to their community. It can also be applied to more generally to other characters such as bards and messengers even. In Hesiod, for instance, heroes refer to a specific age, the age which comes after gods and diamonds - before mortals. When we get to the lyric poet Pinder in the fifth century BC, heroes seem to take on a quasi-technical meaning that you have one mortal parent and one divine parent. And then this notion of the hero as an object of worship takes on the notion of a local deity or tribal patron.
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