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.

See the anchor comment at I.24.720–776.

comment on the antiphonal response to Helen’s lament as performed not by a stylized chorus of women but the whole dēmos of Trojans (in the context of the analysis of Briseis, Andromache and Chryseis as Aeolian choral personalities)

It takes ten days inclusively for the people of Troy to gather the firewood needed to construct the funeral pyre for the cremation of Hector, I.24.784. See the comment on I.24.785–804 on the archaeological evidence showing the vast volume of firewood needed for a funeral pyre.

The corpse of Hector is placed on top of the funeral pyre, and then the pyre is lit, Ι.24.786–787. The next morning, the fires of the cremation are extinguished and the bones of Hector are gathered, Ι.24.792–795, to be placed into a larnax ‘repository’, Ι.24.795. A tumulus is heaped over the remains, I.24.799, and the tumulus itself is called a sēma ‘tomb’, I.24.799/801. What we see here in Iliad 24, in the conclusion to the entire epic narrative, is a perfect description of a perfect entombment after a perfect cremation—to be contrasted with the ritually flawed cremation of Patroklos as described in Iliad 23. Here I find it relevant to cite the archaeological background on the practice of cremation in the Mycenaean era. I quote a brief summary in Nagy 2015.07.22§31:

When I last considered the practices of cremation in a Mycenaean context [in 1990: GMP 85–86], those practices were barely attested archaeologically. But now, with the discovery of nine cremations at the site of Chánia, some three kilometers southwest of the acropolis of Mycenae [Palaiologou 2013], the picture has changed. I note with special interest the splendor of the tumulus that contained these cremations, dated to the 12th century BCE [Palaiologou 2013.274]. The archeologist of record describes as “monumental” the stone tumulus with its circular “cyclopean” enclosure, and she notes that the ritual moment of the actual cremation, which required vast pilings of firewood, must have been “spectacular” [Palaiologou 2013.251]. This splendid tumulus, situated on a plain contiguous with Argos, was most visible to all: “it served as a landmark for the control of the commercial route to Argos and the cultivated area simultaneously” [Palaiologou 2013:275]. By this time, in the 12th century BCE, the glory days of Mycenae and of its Achaean realm were becoming evanescent, but the vitality of Mycenaean culture was still a forceful presence, acknowledged and respected by the local population.

[epitome from HC 4§267]

The focus of the Iliad on Hector as the ultimate beau mort is evident at the conclusion of this epic. The Iliad as we know it ends with the funeral of Hector, not of Achilles. It is Hector, not Achilles, who is lamented at the end. Even the very last word of the Iliad as we have it is a signature for Hector: it is his ornamental epithet hippodamos, the ‘horse-tamer’, I.24.804 (Sacks 1987). So, the Homeric Iliad evolved in such a way as to highlight Hector as the primary point of interest in the poetics of terror and pity. To be contrasted is an alternative epic like the Aithiopis, attributed to Arctinus of Miletus, where the focus at the end is evidently on Achilles as the primary beau mort. Pindar’s reference to the dead Achilles in Isthmian 8 (56-60) alludes to this alternative epic tradition (PH 204–206). In the Iliad, the doomed figure of Hector has been substituted for the equally doomed figure of Achilles, who is the ultimate beau mort of epic. Hector in the Iliad prefigures Achilles as that ultimate beau mort. See also anchor comment at I.23.184–194.

[epitome from HC 4§268]

This foregrounding of Hector in the Iliad as we know it is a matter of politics as well as esthetics. The beautiful death of Hector, his belle mort, is for Athenians an expression of their empire. See the comment on I.15.494–499, where I made an epitome from HC 4§268. In what follows, I repeat the relevant parts of that epitome. The Athenian statesman Lycurgus says it best when he refers to the willingness of Athenian citizens to die in war not only for their own patris ‘fatherland’ but also for all of Hellas as a patris ‘fatherland’ that is koinē ‘common’ to all Hellenes (Against Leokrates 104). Lycurgus invokes as his prime example the belle mort of the Athenian citizen-warriors who fought at Marathon and who thereby won for Hellas a freedom from terror, an adeia ‘security’ that is koinē ‘common’ to all Hellenes (104). The Athenian statesman is making this reference to the imperial interests of Athens in the context of actually quoting the words of Hector in the Iliad, who says that he is willing to die for his fatherland in order to protect it against the Achaeans (Lycurgus Against Leokrates 103 lines 4-9). These heroic words of Hector correspond to I.15.494–499, and Lycurgus quotes them in the larger context of saying that the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, as performed at the quadrennial Athenian festival of the Panathenaia, are the ancestral heritage of the Athenians and the primary source of their education as citizen-warriors (Against Leokrates 102). In this invocation of Homeric poetry as the most sublime expression of the Athenian empire, the statesman is quoting the words of a Trojan, not the words of an Achaean. It is the belle mort of Hector that motivates the Athenians to live up to the heroic legacy they learn from Homer.