Nostos and Kleos (Homer)
The two competing values at the heart of Homer's epics: nostos (νόστος), safe homecoming, the return to family and ordinary life, and kleos (κλέος), undying fame achieved through heroic excellence, usually requiring early death, which Achilles must choose between in the Iliad (he chooses kleos) and which Odysseus pursues simultaneously in the Odyssey, representing Homer's exploration of the fundamental human tension between the desire for significance and the desire for belonging.
Nostos literally means 'return home', the same root as 'nostalgia' (literally, the pain of not being able to return). In the context of the Trojan War, all the Greek warriors must choose how much risk to take in pursuit of glory: the more aggressively they seek kleos (glory, fame, the undying memory that compensates for mortal death), the more they risk not achieving nostos (the homecoming to family, ordinary life, and mortal happiness). This is the fundamental tension Homer builds into the epic cycle.
Achilles's choice is stark and stated explicitly: he was told he could die young with kleos at Troy or grow old in nostos at home. He chose Troy, and therefore glory and early death over an undistinguished long life. This choice makes him the paradigmatic hero: someone who values how they live over how long they live, who treats the quality of their legacy as more important than the quantity of their days. But Homer does not endorse this straightforwardly, the Iliad shows the costs of Achilles's kleos-seeking in devastating detail: the death of Patroclus, the grief that transforms Achilles, the dehumanizing rage that drives him to desecrate Hector's body.
Odysseus's situation in the Odyssey complicates the binary: he wants both nostos and kleos, and the epic is his 10-year struggle to achieve nostos without abandoning the identity (the kleos-earned arete of cunning and endurance) that makes him worth returning to. The Sirens episode captures this precisely: Odysseus alone among all sailors gets to hear the Sirens (pursuing experience and knowledge, a form of kleos) while still making it home alive (nostos), because he engineers the situation where he can have both. The tension between nostos and kleos is the tension between love and excellence, between being someone's husband, father, and son versus being the greatest hero alive.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between nostos and kleos in Homer? ＋
Nostos is safe homecoming, return to family, ordinary life, and mortal happiness. Kleos is undying fame earned through heroic excellence, usually requiring early death. Achilles explicitly chose kleos over nostos (young glory over long obscurity). Odysseus pursues both: 10 years seeking nostos while the arete he built through kleos remains the core of his identity. The tension between them is Homer's way of asking: what makes a human life meaningful, love and belonging, or excellence and legacy?