lament

... again see alive, is not just a speech expressing her sorrows: it is also, in terms of Homeric representation, a song of lament. What now follows is a general introduction to what ... Continue reading

In the Iliad, Andromache is represented as singing three songs of lament for Hector. Each one of these three laments is quoted, as it were, by the Master Narrator, and each one of the quotations corresponds morpholo ... Continue reading

... s a morbid but realistic premonition of the grim future that awaits her. This kind of premonition is typical in women’s laments: see the anchor comment at I.06.407–439. Here at I. ... Continue reading

... d to Eëtion, father of Andromache. As we have seen in the anchor comment at I.06.407–439, Andromache in the Iliad sings laments in expressing her sorrows. Such singing is relevant ... Continue reading

Here at I.09.561–564, it is revealed that Kleopatra had a second name, and that this name had to do with the singing of laments. Her second name was Alkuónē, I.09.562, which was given to her as a reminder of sorrows suffered by her mother, who is said to have lamented ... Continue reading

... that has just been uprooted by a violent gust of wind corresponds to conventional descriptions of the dead in songs of lament. For more on such descriptions, see the comment on I ... Continue reading

... since her husband will never return to her alive. Instead of welcoming back her husband in Iliad 22, Andromache will be lamenting him, and the wording at I.22.444 in the context o ... Continue reading

... d of the armor of Achilles, is still underway. Immediately, Achilles feels akhos ‘grief’, I.18.22. But the mourning and lamentation that is caused by this grief is aimed not only ... Continue reading

Thetis not only mourns her son Achilles as if he were already dead: she formally laments him in song. The wording of the verses spoken by Thetis here at I.18.051–060 corresponds morphologically to the wording of a song that could ... Continue reading

... eis in addressing the corpse of Patroklos is not just a speech expressing her sorrows: morphologically, it is a song of lament. In what follows, I make ten points about this lamen ... Continue reading

After the epic is done with quoting, as it were, the lament of Briseis for Patroklos, I.19.282–302, it proceeds to quote the lament of Achilles himself for his best friend, I.19.314–338; here too, as in ... Continue reading

The lament of Andromache, as we see it come to a conclusion here at I.22.515, is a classic example of a group performance as rounded out here at I.22.515 ... Continue reading