Women of the Iliad

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The Iliad incorporates within in its own heroic song tradition the conventions and poetics of a number of other song traditions, including and especially women's song traditions. Of all the song and speech traditions that are incorporated into Homeric poetry, lament is perhaps the most pervasive. Achilles and Hektor are lamented repeatedly throughout the Iliad. As Mary Ebbott has discussed in a recent article, through laments for husbands, parents, and children women can comment on their own sufferings, life history, and status within the community.

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Helen's lament for Hektor reveals reactions to her that otherwise go unspoken in the Iliad. We can see the traditional language and conventional themes of lament in her speeches throughout the Iliad.
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 The laments that women sing in the Iliad are both traditional, in that they incorporate conventions of Greek lament that are still alive today, and personal in that they shows us, as nowhere else in the Iliad, women's own life experiences, from bride to widow to captive. The songs of lament are also the first songs sung in remembrance of the dead hero, and are therefore important in defining the kleos of the hero (see the Concept of the Hero page for more on kleos). Lament songs can also rouse feelings of vengeance over this death, and thus in some contexts it is considered dangerous to allow women to lament.

This duality is already a fundamental aspect of the ritual lament for the dead in Greek tradition. As Margaret Alexiou has shown on a functional level: "objectively, it is designed to honor and appease the dead, while subjectively, it gives expression to a wide range of conflicting emotions." (The Ritual Lament in the Greek Tradition, p. 55.)

Traditional lament language occurs in women's speeches throughout the Iliad. The song sings not only about teh deceased but may also include sentiments of the woman's vulnerability without the man's protection, how she is perceived by others, and how she wishes things were different or how things might have been if the dead man had not died. The past, present and possible future are all addressed in a avariety of ways. The strong presence of the lament tradition in a song that is ultimately about the hero's mortality is woven into the speeches of characters like Briseis, Andromache and Helen, even when they are not singing a formal lament at a funeral.

Briseis and Andromache

Modern Greek laments, like those of the Iliad, are often erotic and contain elements of love song and song of grief combined. The following poem by the modern Greek poet Ritsos captures this combination:

A poem by Ritsos, translation by George Syrimis

mallià zgourà pou pàno tous ta dhàhtila pernoùsa

tis nìhtes pou kimòsouna ke plài sou xagripnoùsa

frìdhi mou gaitanòfridho ke kontilogramèno

kàmara pou to vlèma mou koùrniaze anapamèno

màtia glarà pou mèsa tous antìfengan ta màkri

proinoù ouranoù ke pàskiza min ta thambòsi dhàkri

hìli mou moskomìristo pou os làlages anthìzan

lithària ke xeròdhendra ki aidhònia fterougìzan

Curly hair through which my fingers I would pass,

the nights you slept and next to you I kept vigil

That eyebrow for me, sword-curved eyebrow and pencil-drawn

- an arch in which my gaze would nest in peace.

Blue eyes in which would shine the distances

of a morning sky, and I toiled that they would not be blurred by tears.

Those sweet-smelling lips for me, when you spoke there was blossoming of stones and dried out trees, and nightingales would flutter.
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