Homer Iliad 24.746

The Iliad ends with the funeral of Hector, not of Achilles. And it is Hector, not Achilles, who is lamented at the end. But it is Achilles who makes it all happen, since he has transcended his rage and has shown mercy to an old father. The tears of Priam had made Achilles think of his own old father, of his own ancestors—and of Patroklos, who embodied the glories of the ancestors. Achilles was looking bad at the beginning of Iliad 23 and even at the beginning of Iliad 24, but he looks very good by the time Iliad 24 comes to a close.

Mourners lament as Hector’s corpse is laid out in preparation for the funeral that closes Iliad Rhapsody 24. Copperplate etching (1795) by Tommaso Piroli, after a drawing (1793) by John Flaxman. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

The funeral of Hector may now begin. A funeral procession takes Hector to his bier, where the laments can begin.

The laments for Hector at his funeral can be divided into two main parts, the second of which can be subdivided into three sub-parts. The first main part is at I.24.720–722, where professional aoidoi ‘singers’ who are men, I.24.720, perform thrēnoi ‘laments’, I.24.721; as they perform, the word that refers to their performance is thrēneîn ‘make lament’, I.24.722, which is a verb derived from the noun thrēnos ‘lament’. Following up on the laments performed by the professional singers are laments performed by the gunaikes ‘women’ of Troy, I.24.722. These women, as women singers, are of course non-professionals, and their role as singers is subordinated to the role of the professional singers, as we see from the use of the verb epi-stenakhesthai ‘wail in response’ at I.24.722 in referring to their performance. This act of wailing-in-response is treated here as an antiphonal complement to the singing of the professional singers, who are described as ex-arkhoi ‘lead singers’ of the thrēnoi ‘laments’ that they sing, I.24.721. By now we have reached the end of the narrative about the first main part of the laments performed at the funeral of Hector. Now the narrative about the second part of the laments can begin, and this part, as noted already, can be subdivided into three sub-parts. The Master Narrator now quotes, as it were, three laments, to be performed by Andromache at I.24.725–745, by Hecuba at I.24.748–759, and by Helen at I.24.762–775. But the two main parts in this overall scheme are not kept separate here, since the same women who sang at I.24.722 their responses to the laments sung by men who were lead singers will now perform responses to the three women who will now be singing their own laments, and these three will now be singing as lead singers in their own right, as expressed by the verb arkhein / ex-arkhein / ex-arkhein ‘lead off [in performing]’ in the case of Andromache / Hecuba / Helen at I.24.723 / I.24.747 / I.24.761. These three singing women are not professionals, but nevertheless they hold positions of great social status, since they all belong to Hector’s immediate family: as family members, they sing a form of lament that qualifies as a góos, not as a thrēnos. This word góos ‘lament’ is applied to the singing of Andromache / Hecuba / Helen at I.24.723 / I.24.747 (also at I.24.760) / I. 24.761. Of these three, the most important performer of lament here is Andromache, since she gets to cradle the head of Hector from behind while she sings her song of lament over his corpse, I.24.724. The special importance of Andromache is also signaled by the fact that the verb epi-stenakhesthai ‘wail in response’, which had signaled at I.24.722 the antiphonal singing of the women of Troy in response to the thrēnoi ‘laments’, I.24.721, that were sung by the professional lead singers, is also used at I.24.746 to signal the antiphonal singing of the women of Troy in response to the góos ‘lament’, I.24.723, that is sung by Andromache as the non-professional lead singer. The general response at I.24.746 by the women of Troy to the lament of Andromache is an intensification of the more specific response at I.22.515 by the women who attended her when she previously sang her second lament, though the wording is exactly the same at I.24.746 as at I.22.515: ‘So she [= Andromache] spoke, and the women wailed in response’ (ὣς ἔφατο κλαίουσ’, ἐπὶ δὲ στενάχοντο γυναῖκες). An even more general response, however, occurs at I.24.776, where not just the women of Troy but the entire dēmos or ‘populace’ of the city joins the antiphonal singing, as signaled here by the verb epi-stenein ‘wail in response’: ‘So she [= Helen] spoke, and the vast populace [dēmos] wailed in response’ (ὣς ἔφατο κλαίουσ’, ἐπὶ δ’ ἔστενε δῆμος ἀπείρων). Now the whole community is lamenting in response to the góos ‘lament’ as re-started at I.24.761 by Helen as the last of the three women who sing here as lead singers.

In the first of the three laments performed by Andromache, as quoted by the Master Narrator at I.06.407–439, she is already lamenting the death of Hector before he is even dead. As for the second lament, as quoted at I.22.476–515, she sings it when she sees the corpse of Hector for the first time. As for her third lament, here at I.24.723–746, she sings it on the occasion of Hector’s funeral. As Andromache starts her song of lament at I.24.723, the verb arkhein in the sense of ‘lead off [in performing]’ signals that she is leading off as a lead singer, and the song that she sings is called here a góos ‘lament’. Then, as Andromache finishes her lead song at I.24.746, the women of Troy sing an antiphonal refrain as signaled by the verb epi-stenakhizesthai ‘wail in response’. See also anchor comment at I.06.407–439 on: three laments by Andromache, part 1; and anchor comment at I.22.476–515 on: three laments by Andromache, part 2.

See the anchor comment at I.24.720–776.

See the anchor comment at I.24.720–776.

The poem's final scene presents a full-scale lamentation with performances by women close to Hektor. Andromakhe mourns for his early death, praises his protection of the city, and predicts the suffering she will face as a widow with a young child (24.725-45). Hekabe, his mother, dwells on the fine condition of his corpse as a sign of divine favor (24.748-59). Helen makes a dramatically fitting third mourner, as she has unwittingly caused Hektor's death: even though she may have expected abuse, Hektor never reviled her, and in fact protected her from the remarks of others (24.762-75). These lamentations fulfill the conditions for muthos performance found throughout the analysis: they are acts of self-presentation with an emphasis on extension and detail, in a public setting. The genius of the Iliad lies in having captured such acts within the medium of epic and used them to humanize archaic figures of myth (Martin 1993:88).

For the broader analysis of lament as a muthos genre of memory, and the specific discussion of Hekabe's and Helen's speeches earlier in the poem, see the comment on Iliad 24.200-217.

References

Martin, R. P. 1993. The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad. Ithaca.