Death in the Iliad: Reports and Responses

Ὣς οἳ μὲν μάρναντο δέμας πυρὸς αἰθομένοιο,
Ἀντίλοχος δ’ Ἀχιλῆϊ πόδας ταχὺς ἄγγελος ἦλθε.
τὸν δ’ εὗρε προπάροιθε νεῶν ὀρθοκραιράων
τὰ φρονέοντ’ ἀνὰ θυμὸν ἃ δὴ τετελεσμένα ἦεν·
[5] ὀχθήσας δ’ ἄρα εἶπε πρὸς ὃν μεγαλήτορα θυμόν·
Il. 18.1-5

So they fought on like burning fire, and Antilochus came quick-footed with the news for Achilleus. He found him in front of the horned ships. His mind was foreboding what had indeed come to pass, and in dismay he spoke to his own great heart. (trans. Hammond)

These opening lines of Iliad 18 shift the reader from the battlefield to the Myrmidon camp and into the presence of Achilles. τὸν δ’ εὗρε (‘him he found’) begins line three, and the subsequent line openings τὰ φρονέοντ’ ἀνὰ θυμὸν (‘pondering in his heart’) and ὀχθήσας (‘troubled/agitated’) provide some details for sketching out this figure set against the background of his ships; his is a brooding presence, active in thought but not yet in deed.

‘Examine and compare the literary effects of Homer Iliad 18.1-34 + 22.437-486’: a found object, an old essay assignment from once upon a time, and the groundwork for this analysis. What do those two verse selections have in common? Both extracts contain character responses to the death of a loved one: they are responses from the loved ones’ most significant others, the responses of the ones who were not there (as we readers were) and for whom the terrible news has been delayed in either being reported or observed by actions in the storyworld which have taken precedence in the narrative. Iliad 18.1-34 contains the response of Achilles to the death of Patroclus and Iliad 22.437-486 that of Andromache to the death of Hector. So dusting off an old piece of work (and looking again with older eyes), I’ve extracted, updated and revised with a mind more set on reading experiences and more alert (I’d hope) to the subtleties of narrative presentation. I’ve used Martin Hammond’s 1987 English translation throughout for this post as it’s solid enough and given the amount of quotation from the Iliad employed here, it should provide a more even tone to the reading than the hasty and literal versions I might otherwise offer at present.

‘He found him in front of the horned ships’: we’ve returned to the initial setting of Iliad 16 – the camp where Achilles roused his Myrmidons to battle and sent them out led by Patroclus in his (Achilles’) armour to drive the Trojans away from the ships and back across the plain (16.1-256). After succeeding in pushing the Trojans back, Patroclus finally falls to Hector (and Apollo) at the close of that book. However, the fighting over his body continues throughout the entirety of Iliad 17. So, excluding brief exchanges and commentary from watching Olympians, text-time has been taken up by the narrative of that day’s fighting. Patroclus is dead but the news is not quick to reach Achilles. We know. We saw it happen. We were told it was going to happen and told repeatedly. We need go no further back than Iliad 16 for now to find examples.

When Patroclus approached Achilles and asked to fight in his place and wear his armour, the Homeric narrator commented on the consequences.

So he spoke in entreaty, the poor fool – what he was begging would be a wretched death for himself and his own destruction.
Il. 16.46-7

When Achilles prayed to Zeus for Patroclus’ success and safe return to him, the Homeric narrator informed the narratees exactly what Zeus would and would not do.

So he spoke in prayer, and Zeus the counsellor heard him. Half of the prayer the father granted him, and half he refused. He granted that Patroklos should push the battle back from the ships, but refused his safe return from the fighting.
Il. 16.249-52

When Patroclus sought to rout the Trojans, the narrator commented again and addressed the character directly.

But Patroklos called to his horses and Automedon and went in pursuit of the Trojans and Lycians, and this was a fatal error, poor fool – if he had kept to the instruction of the son of Peleus, he would have escaped the vile doom of black death. But Zeus’ mind is always stronger than the mind of men – he can bring terror on even the brave man and easily rob him of victory: and then again he himself will spur a man to fight. And it was Zeus then who put the urge in Patroklos’ heart. Then who was the first, and who the last you killed, Patroklos, when the gods now called you to your death?
Il. 16.684-93

Whilst we readers had no advance knowledge of the precise moment and manner of Patroclus’ death, such explicit commentary from a reliable narrator left us in no doubt as to its inevitability.

If a prediction comes in the narrator’s own voice, we may label it an authoritative prediction. Such authority is accorded by the conventions of the genre: without hesitation, the audience accepts it as reliable and accurate. The narrator’s predictions are authoritative, for part of the implied contract between the narrator and the audience is that the narrator will be trustworthy. The audience relies upon the narrator, with good reason in the majority of cases.

We saw the death occur, action unfolding in scenic time: the strike from the god Apollo that left him dazed and set his helmet rolling; the wound from Euphorbus’ spear that sent him into retreat; the fatal thrust from Hector that sent him down to Hades; and we heard his final words to his killer.

‘I tell you another thing, and you mark it well in your mind. You yourself, you too will not live long, but already now death and strong fate are standing close beside you, to bring you down at the hands of Achilleus, great son of Aiakos’ stock.’
Il. 16. 851-4

Patroclus’ final words are a prophecy of revenge and Achilles the last name on his lips. Hector casts doubt on the dead man’s prediction but Achilles is now in his mind, in our minds. What will he do when he finds out? When will he find out? In around eight hundred lines, when Antilochus arrives with the terrible news and we find Achilles talking to his heart, vocalising the thoughts that trouble him (on the ‘Homeric psychology’ of this technique, see my opening remarks in Speakers and Speeches in the Argonautica: Running the Numbers).

ὤ μοι ἐγώ, τί τ’ ἄρ’ αὖτε κάρη κομόωντες Ἀχαιοὶ
νηυσὶν ἔπι κλονέονται ἀτυζόμενοι πεδίοιο;
μὴ δή μοι τελέσωσι θεοὶ κακὰ κήδεα θυμῷ,
ὥς ποτέ μοι μήτηρ διεπέφραδε καί μοι ἔειπε
[10] Μυρμιδόνων τὸν ἄριστον ἔτι ζώοντος ἐμεῖο
χερσὶν ὕπο Τρώων λείψειν φάος ἠελίοιο.
ἦ μάλα δὴ τέθνηκε Μενοιτίου ἄλκιμος υἱὸς
σχέτλιος· ἦ τ’ ἐκέλευον ἀπωσάμενον δήϊον πῦρ
ἂψ ἐπὶ νῆας ἴμεν, μηδ’ Ἕκτορι ἶφι μάχεσθαι.
Il. 18.6-14

‘Oh, why are the long-haired Achaians once more being driven in terror across the plains back to the ships? May it not be that the gods have brought that hateful sorrow on my heart that my mother once revealed to me, saying that while I still lived the best of the Myrmidons would leave the light of the sun under the hands of the Trojans. It must surely be that the brave son of Menoitios is now dead – obstinate man! I told him to come back to the ships once he had driven away the enemy fire, and not face Hektor in full fight.’

Achilles engages in a hypothetical reconstruction of events that the reader of Iliad 16 and 17 has already processed. Why are the Achaeans running back? His first thought is to cause, and a cause he cannot express straightforwardly as statement. Instead he formulates a wish that his pessimistic deduction is incorrect: μὴ δή μοι τελέσωσι θεοὶ κακὰ κήδεα θυμῷ (‘may they not (as I fear they may)…’).

In Homer the independent subjunctive with μή (generally in the third person) may express fear or anxiety, with a desire to avert the object of the fear.

Achilles’ κακὰ κήδεα expands upon and clarifies the narrator’s τὰ φρονέοντα – his thoughts are bad ones. ‘May it not be that the gods… ’ Don’t go there, Achilles. He can’t help himself. Patroclus is dead. Lines 8.6f occasioned this emotive response found in the Homeric scholia.

περιπαθῶς ἄγαν ἑαυτὸν ἀπολοφύρεται ἐπὶ τῇ ὑπονοουμένῃ τοῦ φίλου συμφορᾷ. μεγαλοφυῶς δὲ ἀπὸ τῆς φυγῆς τῶν Ἀχαιῶν στοχάζεται πεπτωκέναι Πάτροκλον· οὐκ ἂν γὰρ αὐτοῦ ζῶντος ἔφυγον. (bT)

Deeply moved, he bewails loudly the conjectured downfall of his loved one. Observing the Achaean rout, he surmises Patroclus’ fall; for they would not flee while he lived.

The emotional language of that first sentence summary display signs not only of an attentive reader but an invested one. Achilles is still working through the scenario. ‘Didn’t I tell him to come back and not to fight Hector?’ Reason and cause are established. Hector is responsible and it was Patroclus’ own bravery, Μενοιτίου ἄλκιμος υἱὸς (18.12), that destroyed him. Hector’s inability to hang back will be his undoing as well. Andromache knew that, but in Iliad 22 no messenger comes to the wife.

Ὣς ἔφατο κλαίουσ’, ἄλοχος δ’ οὔ πώ τι πέπυστο
Ἕκτορος· οὐ γάρ οἵ τις ἐτήτυμος ἄγγελος ἐλθὼν
ἤγγειλ’ ὅττί ῥά οἱ πόσις ἔκτοθι μίμνε πυλάων,
[440] ἀλλ’ ἥ γ’ ἱστὸν ὕφαινε μυχῷ δόμου ὑψηλοῖο
δίπλακα πορφυρέην, ἐν δὲ θρόνα ποικίλ’ ἔπασσε.
κέκλετο δ’ ἀμφιπόλοισιν ἐϋπλοκάμοις κατὰ δῶμα
ἀμφὶ πυρὶ στῆσαι τρίποδα μέγαν, ὄφρα πέλοιτο
Ἕκτορι θερμὰ λοετρὰ μάχης ἐκ νοστήσαντι
[445] νηπίη, οὐδ’ ἐνόησεν ὅ μιν μάλα τῆλε λοετρῶν
χερσὶν Ἀχιλλῆος δάμασε γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη.
Il. 22. 437-446

So she spoke with her tears falling. But Hektor’s wife had not yet heard anything. No messenger had come to bring her clear news that her husband had stayed outside the gates, but she was in a corner of their high house working at a web of purple cloth for a double cloak, and weaving a pattern of flowers in it. She had told the lovely-haired maids in her house to set a great three-legged cauldron over the fire, so there could be hot water for Hektor’s bath when he came home from battle – poor child, she did not know that far away from any baths bright-eyed Athene had brought him down at the hands of Achilleus.

In contrast to later epics and other works of literature, all speeches in the Iliad and the Odyssey are fully set apart from the narrative. The narrator frames every speech by introductory and concluding lines or half-lines, and he never interjects phrases like “he said.” The speech itself always commences at the beginning of a hexameter line and ends at the end of one … A character’s discourse is thus a metrically autonomous entity; the act of speech stands equal to narrative action as a central event…

The narrator framed Priam’s lament Ὣς ἔφατο κλαίων (‘so he spoke weeping’, 22.429) and likewise that of Hecabe which followed (Ὣς ἔφατο κλαίουσ’, 22.437). The narration proceeds immediately on to Andromache. She is not introduced by name but by relationship; she is the wife, the wife who knew nothing yet. We saw. The father saw. The mother saw. Where was the wife when the husband died?

Line 440 places her – ἀλλ’ ἥ γ’ ἱστὸν ὕφαινε μυχῷ δόμου ὑψηλοῖο (440). We shift from the view from Troy’s walls to Andromache’s room and find her weaving. ‘Go home and attend to your work’ said Hector when last they were together (6.490). She had asked him to stay and pointed out the weakness in the battlements that required defending, she had asked him not to go back out into the fighting, asked him not to make their son an orphan and her a widow. He told her he would rather die than feel ashamed. If reminded of that conversation, we observe in her setting and through her actions here something of Andromache’s nature; both dutiful wife and mistress of their household. The domestic imagery in the scene accumulates, its details gathering to create a momentary calm from the turmoil outside. Hector has fallen and now Troy too will fall.

Outside a world is collapsing but inside a cloak is being woven and patterned with flowers. Inside a bath is being run. These are normal things, good things, like cooking a meal for family or friends. In control of this domain, Andromache has created a bubble world of almost-normality (or the narrator has created for her) which is now about to burst. The clothes will never be worn, the bath will go cold, the husband will not return ‘safe from the battle’ (444).

‘Poor wretch, death is not in your thoughts at all, and it is now coming close to you. You are dressing in the immortal armour of the best of men, a man all others fear. And you have now killed this man’s friend, who was kind and strong, and you have taken the armour from his head and shoulders, wrongly. But for the moment I shall grant you great power, in recompense for what will happen – you will never return home from the fighting, for Andromache to take from you the famous armour of the son of Peleus.’

So the son of Kronos spoke, and nodded his dark brows.
Il. 17.201-9

Watching from Olympus, Zeus announced his decision to grant Hector great strength, in recompense for what would never happen. We heard Zeus and knew Hector would die. When the narrator recalls the pronouncement of Zeus and appends this phrase to the intention of the wife who knows nothing, inevitability (fate/causality) and ignorance (mortal/character) are foregrounded. ‘Poor woman!’ (νηπίη): σχέτλιος said Achilles of Patroclus, but here it is the Homeric narrator making himself heard. αὔξει τὸ πάθος (‘It increases the suffering’) comments the scholia (bT). Her husband has fallen far from the baths and the movement now flows to her awareness. An environment is created to stand apart from the war, but to be allowed this glimpse only enhances the pathos of its dissolution. Andromache, seen as wife and mistress of a busy household is already a widow and alone in that lofty house. Her husband’s bath is ready but he is dead at the gates.

κωκυτοῦ δ’ ἤκουσε καὶ οἰμωγῆς ἀπὸ πύργου·
τῆς δ’ ἐλελίχθη γυῖα, χαμαὶ δέ οἱ ἔκπεσε κερκίς·
ἣ δ’ αὖτις δμῳῇσιν ἐϋπλοκάμοισι μετηύδα·
Il. 22.447-9

But now the sound of wailing and lamentation reached her from the tower. Her body shook, and the shuttle dropped to the ground from her hands. She called once more to her lovely maid-servants.

It was the sight of Achaeans in flight that caused Achilles to fear. For Andromache it is sound, the wailing of Hecuba on Troy’s tower. The mother’s shrieking effects in Andromache a physical response: ‘Her limbs reeled and the shuttle fell to earth’ (448). No more need for it now. Achilles spoke to his heart, Andromache to her handmaids.

[450] δεῦτε δύω μοι ἕπεσθον, ἴδωμ’ ὅτιν’ ἔργα τέτυκται.
αἰδοίης ἑκυρῆς ὀπὸς ἔκλυον, ἐν δ’ ἐμοὶ αὐτῇ
στήθεσι πάλλεται ἦτορ ἀνὰ στόμα, νέρθε δὲ γοῦνα
πήγνυται· ἐγγὺς δή τι κακὸν Πριάμοιο τέκεσσιν.
αἲ γὰρ ἀπ’ οὔατος εἴη ἐμεῦ ἔπος· ἀλλὰ μάλ’ αἰνῶς
[455] δείδω μὴ δή μοι θρασὺν Ἕκτορα δῖος Ἀχιλλεὺς
μοῦνον ἀποτμήξας πόλιος πεδίον δὲ δίηται,
καὶ δή μιν καταπαύσῃ ἀγηνορίης ἀλεγεινῆς
ἥ μιν ἔχεσκ’, ἐπεὶ οὔ ποτ’ ἐνὶ πληθυῖ μένεν ἀνδρῶν,
ἀλλὰ πολὺ προθέεσκε, τὸ ὃν μένος οὐδενὶ εἴκων.
Il. 22.450-9

‘Come, two of you come with me, so I can find out what has happened. I could hear the voice of my husband’s honoured mother, and the heart in my own breast is leaping up to my mouth, and my legs are freezing under me – some disaster must be coming on Priam’s children. May my ears never hear such a thing as I say, but I am terribly afraid that Achilleus may have caught my brave Hektor alone and cut him off from the city, driving him out to the plain, and now he may have put an end to that dangerous pride which always possessed him – he would never stay among the mass of men, but was always charging out far ahead and yielding to no-one in his fury.’

Her anxiety is evident. Her first commands are breathless – ‘Come, you two, follow me’ (450) and her body in reported shock – ‘in my breast my heart leaps up my mouth and beneath my knees freeze’ (451-3). As did Achilles, she voices the fear of what she will discover and why her fear is well-grounded: Hector is bold (θρασύς). ‘Your courage will kill you,’ she had warned him (δαιμόνιε, φθίσει σε τὸ σὸν μένος, 6.407). Object is positioned alongside subject – ‘brave Hector’ cedes to ‘great Achilles’. What follows is both praise and criticism of Hector’s courage that recalls their conversation in Iliad 6 but the tense has changed. Her husband’s acts of bravery are now in the past. There is finality here. It is as though Andromache has accepted what she is now projecting as the view she is about to see from the wall.

ἀγηνορία can be translated ‘courage’ or ‘pride’ (as Hammond), but whether we read in it a critique of him or her own pride in him, she qualifies it as ἀλεγεινός. His ἀγηνορία ‘causes pain’. To himself? To his enemies? To her? ἀλεγεινός was the news that came to Achilles.

[15] εἷος ὃ ταῦθ’ ὥρμαινε κατὰ φρένα καὶ κατὰ θυμόν,
τόφρά οἱ ἐγγύθεν ἦλθεν ἀγαυοῦ Νέστορος υἱὸς
δάκρυα θερμὰ χέων, φάτο δ’ ἀγγελίην ἀλεγεινήν·
ὤ μοι Πηλέος υἱὲ δαΐφρονος ἦ μάλα λυγρῆς
πεύσεαι ἀγγελίης, ἣ μὴ ὤφελλε γενέσθαι.
[20] κεῖται Πάτροκλος, νέκυος δὲ δὴ ἀμφιμάχονται
γυμνοῦ· ἀτὰρ τά γε τεύχε’ ἔχει κορυθαίολος Ἕκτωρ.
Il. 18.15-21

While he was pondering this in his mind and his heart, the son of proud Nestor came up close to him with his warm tears falling, and gave his painful message: ‘Oh, son of warrior Peleus, there is terrible news for you to hear, which I wish had never happened. Patroklos lies dead, and they are fighting over his body. It is naked now – Hektor of the glinting helmet has his armour.’

Achilles’ thoughts revolve as Antilochus approaches: εἷος ὃ ταῦθ’ ὥρμαινε κατὰ φρένα καὶ κατὰ θυμόν (15).

these acts or states are rendered in that they take place, they happen and their effect is seen spreading to their pertinent organs

This is now the fourth occurrence of θυμός in this selection. His emotions are present and palpable. We anticipate a spilling-over, a violent reaction, as the ἀλεγεινός (17) message arrives.

ὥσπερ συναλγῶν ἐπὶ τῇ Πατρόκλου συμφορᾷ ὁ ποιητὴς ἐπιφωνεῖ ὅτι ἀλεγεινὴ ἀγγελία τὸ τὸν Πάτροκλον ἀγγεῖλαι τετελευτηκότα.

As though sharing in Patroclus’ misfortune, the poet adds that the message bearing news of Patroclus’ death is painful.

Antilochus’ report is concise, possibly rushed. Line 20 is enjambed and a key word thus highlighted by position – γυμνοῦ (21). ‘They are fighting over his body – his naked body!’ Why naked? The line’s (and message’s) ending provides the answer that the reader already knows: κορυθαίολος Ἕκτωρ holds his armour.

ἱκανῶς ἐτάχυνε τὸ κακάγγελον ἐν ὅλοις δύο στίχοις. καὶ ἐν βραχεῖ πάντα ἐδήλωσε, τὸν ἀποθανόντα, τοὺς ὑπερμαχομένους, τὸν κτείναντα. οὐκ ἐζήλωσαν δὲ τοῦτο οἱ τραγικοί, ἀλλὰ τοῖς λυπουμένοις μακρὰς ἐπάγουσι τὰς διηγήσεις τῶν συμφορῶν.

He has adequately edited the message into two complete lines. And in a few words, he’s explained everything – the death, the fighting, the killer. The tragedians do not emulate this but give lengthy speeches to those mourning the fallen.

Pace bT but this is the third time the reader has heard this message now and there are lengthy speeches to come. Still, here and immediately, the addressee has no words of reply.

Ὣς φάτο, τὸν δ’ ἄχεος νεφέλη ἐκάλυψε μέλαινα·
ἀμφοτέρῃσι δὲ χερσὶν ἑλὼν κόνιν αἰθαλόεσσαν
χεύατο κὰκ κεφαλῆς, χαρίεν δ’ ᾔσχυνε πρόσωπον·
[25] νεκταρέῳ δὲ χιτῶνι μέλαιν’ ἀμφίζανε τέφρη.
αὐτὸς δ’ ἐν κονίῃσι μέγας μεγαλωστὶ τανυσθεὶς
κεῖτο, φίλῃσι δὲ χερσὶ κόμην ᾔσχυνε δαΐζων.
δμῳαὶ δ’ ἃς Ἀχιλεὺς ληΐσσατο Πάτροκλός τε
θυμὸν ἀκηχέμεναι μεγάλ’ ἴαχον, ἐκ δὲ θύραζε
[30] ἔδραμον ἀμφ’ Ἀχιλῆα δαΐφρονα, χερσὶ δὲ πᾶσαι
στήθεα πεπλήγοντο, λύθεν δ’ ὑπὸ γυῖα ἑκάστης.
Ἀντίλοχος δ’ ἑτέρωθεν ὀδύρετο δάκρυα λείβων
χεῖρας ἔχων Ἀχιλῆος· ὃ δ’ ἔστενε κυδάλιμον κῆρ·
δείδιε γὰρ μὴ λαιμὸν ἀπαμήσειε σιδήρῳ.
Il. 18.22-34

So he spoke, and the black cloud of sorrow enveloped Achilleus. He took up the sooty dust in both his hands and poured it down over his head, soiling his handsome face: and the black ashes settled all over his sweet-smelling tunic. And he lay there with his whole body sprawling in the dust, huge and hugely fallen, tearing at his hair and defiling it with his own hands. And the serving-women that Achilleus and Patroklos had won in war shrieked loud in their hearts’ grief, and ran out to flock around the warrior Achilleus: all of them beat their breasts with their hands, and the strength collapsed from their bodies. And to one side Antilochus mourned with his tears falling, and he held the hands of Achilleus as his glorious heart groaned: he was afraid that Achilleus might take a knife and cut his own throat.

The message wraps itself around him. No words of response. Fear confirmed, he falls – dirtying himself, disfiguring himself, writhing in the dust. The dust (κόνις) he scatters over his head falls on his fragrant clothing as (as though transmuted to?) black ash (μέλαινα τέφρη). In the dirt and tears, figures blur and overlap. An Achilles churning with worry is approached by a messenger whose appearance (δάκρυα θερμὰ χέων, 18.17) resembles that of Patroclus when he approached and asked for his armour to wear (δάκρυα θερμὰ χέων, 16.3). Who does Achilles see as Antilochus comes towards him with the painful news? Who does he want to see? Did he do as you asked, Achilles, and not contend with Hector?

“Tod und Leben” by Gustav Klimt, 1910/15

‘But follow exactly the aim of the instruction I now put in your mind, so that you can win great honour and glory for me from all the Danaans, and they bring me back the beautiful girl and offer splendid gifts besides. When you have driven them from the ships, come back. And if the loud-thundering husband of Hera grants you the chance to win glory, do not press on without me to fight the war-loving Trojans – that will reduce my worth. And do not lead your men on towards Ilios, slaughtering Trojans, in the delight of battle with the enemy, or one of the ever-living gods from Olympos might come against you – Apollo the far-worker has much love for the Trojans. No, turn back again once you have brought saving light to the ships, and let the others fight on over the plain. Oh, father Zeus and Athene and Apollo, if only none of all the Trojans would escape death, and none of the Argives, but only you and I could survive destruction, so that we alone could break Troy’s holy crown of towers.’
Il. 16.83-100

κεῖται Patroclus (20), κεῖτο Achilles (27). Then who was the first, and who the last you killed, Patroclus, when the gods now called you to your death? The last was Hector’s charioteer Cebriones. The Trojans and Achaeans fought over his body as ‘he lay there in a swirl of dust, huge and hugely fallen’ (ὃ δ᾽ ἐν στροφάλιγγι κονίης | κεῖτο μέγας μεγαλωστί, Il. 16.775-6). Huge and hugely fallen himself, Achilles lies and writhes. His grief leaves him prostrate, face defiled, and hair torn. Who do the gathered women mourn? The one already dead or the one now fated to die? The latter is the choice taken by Achilles’ mother Thetis who hears her son when he finally finds voice, not for words, but for a scream that carries beneath the sea (18.35). The mother knows that now the son will never go home (τὸν δ᾽ οὐχ ὑποδέξομαι αὖτις | οἴκαδε νοστήσαντα δόμον Πηλήϊον εἴσω, 18.59-60).

Then, dying, Hektor of the glinting helmet said to him: ‘Yes, I can tell it – I know you well, and I had no chance of swaying you: your heart is like iron in your breast. But take care now, or I may bring the gods’ anger on you, on that day when for all your bravery Paris and Phoibos Apollo will destroy you at the Skaian gates.’
Il. 22.355-60

Achilles’ raw response was triggered by a two-line report, Andromache’s is triggered by sight. Standing on the wall, Andromache observes and, fears confirmed, the effect on her is no less immediate, no less engulfing.

[460] Ὣς φαμένη μεγάροιο διέσσυτο μαινάδι ἴση
παλλομένη κραδίην· ἅμα δ’ ἀμφίπολοι κίον αὐτῇ
αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ πύργόν τε καὶ ἀνδρῶν ἷξεν ὅμιλον
ἔστη παπτήνασ’ ἐπὶ τείχεϊ, τὸν δὲ νόησεν
ἑλκόμενον πρόσθεν πόλιος· ταχέες δέ μιν ἵπποι
[465] ἕλκον ἀκηδέστως κοίλας ἐπὶ νῆας Ἀχαιῶν.
τὴν δὲ κατ’ ὀφθαλμῶν ἐρεβεννὴ νὺξ ἐκάλυψεν,
ἤριπε δ’ ἐξοπίσω, ἀπὸ δὲ ψυχὴν ἐκάπυσσε.
τῆλε δ’ ἀπὸ κρατὸς βάλε δέσματα σιγαλόεντα,
ἄμπυκα κεκρύφαλόν τε ἰδὲ πλεκτὴν ἀναδέσμην
[470] κρήδεμνόν θ’, ὅ ῥά οἱ δῶκε χρυσῆ Ἀφροδίτη
ἤματι τῷ ὅτε μιν κορυθαίολος ἠγάγεθ’ Ἕκτωρ
ἐκ δόμου Ἠετίωνος, ἐπεὶ πόρε μυρία ἕδνα.
ἀμφὶ δέ μιν γαλόῳ τε καὶ εἰνατέρες ἅλις ἔσταν,
αἵ ἑ μετὰ σφίσιν εἶχον ἀτυζομένην ἀπολέσθαι.
Il. 22.460-74

So speaking, she rushed out of the house like a woman in a frenzy, her heart jumping: and her maids went with her. When she came to the tower and the crowd of men gathered there, she stood on the wall and stared out, and saw him being dragged in front of the city, and fast horses pulling him ruthlessly away to the hollow ships of the Achaians. Black night covered her eyes, and she swooned backwards, and the spirit breathed out of her. And she flung away from her head her shining headdress, the frontlet and the cap, the woven hair-band, and the mantle that golden Aphrodite had given her on the day when Hektor of the glinting helmet led her as his wife from Eëtion’s house, when he had given a countless bride-price for her. Her husband’s sisters and the wives of his brothers crowded round her where she lay shocked almost to her death, and held her up between them.

Hector is dragged ‘remorselessly/ruthlessly’; such is the immediate sense of the adverb ἀκηδέστως (465) and it is her focalisation of Achilles’ treatment of her husband. The adjective ἀκήδεστος can mean ‘unburied/without funeral rites’ and perhaps she sees this too as the horses drag him – the husband she cannot bury. ἑλκόμενον … ἕλκον: ‘dragged … dragging’ – an awful reiteration battering her sight. It’s too much. Black night covered her eyes, and she swooned backwards, and the spirit breathed out of her. Andromache only faints at the sight she had dreaded but the words are suggestive of death.

When Hecuba’s scream alerted her, the shuttle fell to earth (22.448). At the end of her lament, her thoughts will turn to her house, to the fine clothes she made for him and that she will burn. As her husband was stripped of his armour and life, Andromache too lost her position in the world. In response to his death, she too is disarmed. The κρήδεμνον (22.470) is her bridal veil, a symbol of marriage that invites the memory of her wedding day into this mixture of union and separation.

εἰς μνήμην ἄγει τῆς παλαιᾶς εὐδαιμονίας, ὅπως τῇ μεταβολῇ αὐξήσῃ τὸν οἶκτον

He introduces a memory of former prosperity so as to augment our pity at the transition.

Iliad 18 blended figures; Iliad 22 distorts Time. The veil conjures a fusion of wedding and funeral, bride and widow. We witness simultaneously the beginning of her life with Hector and its conclusion. The narrative has carried the reader from the battlefield into the home and here at the recognition of that home’s destruction back to the brightness of its creation. Andromache lies ‘distraught to the point of death’ in the arms of those who surrounded her then in joy, but now in despair.

In Iliad 18, the female slaves rushed out around Achilles and beat their breasts. Antilochus wailed with hot tears falling. Achilles could not yet articulate his suffering but when he does, his thoughts are of revenge. The god Hephaestus will forge new armour and a shield. Hector killed Patroclus. Hector wears his armour. Achilles has a focus for his grief and his rage. Andromache’s grief does not (cannot) develop in this way. She and Hector were helpless to escape their destiny. The gods destroyed Hector through the agency of Achilles, and when she revives, her lament illustrates the power of Fate.

[475] ἣ δ’ ἐπεὶ οὖν ἔμπνυτο καὶ ἐς φρένα θυμὸς ἀγέρθη
ἀμβλήδην γοόωσα μετὰ Τρῳῇσιν ἔειπεν·
Ἕκτορ ἐγὼ δύστηνος· ἰῇ ἄρα γεινόμεθ’ αἴσῃ
ἀμφότεροι, σὺ μὲν ἐν Τροίῃ Πριάμου κατὰ δῶμα,
αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ Θήβῃσιν ὑπὸ Πλάκῳ ὑληέσσῃ
[480] ἐν δόμῳ Ἠετίωνος, ὅ μ’ ἔτρεφε τυτθὸν ἐοῦσαν
δύσμορος αἰνόμορον· ὡς μὴ ὤφελλε τεκέσθαι.
νῦν δὲ σὺ μὲν Ἀΐδαο δόμους ὑπὸ κεύθεσι γαίης
ἔρχεαι, αὐτὰρ ἐμὲ στυγερῷ ἐνὶ πένθεϊ λείπεις
χήρην ἐν μεγάροισι· πάϊς δ’ ἔτι νήπιος αὔτως,
[485] ὃν τέκομεν σύ τ’ ἐγώ τε δυσάμμοροι· οὔτε σὺ τούτῳ
ἔσσεαι Ἕκτορ ὄνειαρ ἐπεὶ θάνες, οὔτε σοὶ οὗτος.
Il. 22.475-86

When she came to her senses and the spirit gathered back again in her heart, with bursts of sobbing she cried out her lament among the women of Troy: ‘Hektor, my life is misery! So both of us were born under the same fate, you in Troy in Priam’s house, and I in Thebe under wooded Plakos in the house of Eëtion, who brought me up when I was small, doomed father and doomed child – how I wish he had never fathered me! Now you are going down to the house of Hades in the cellars of the earth, and leaving me behind in hateful mourning, a widow in your house. And our child is still only a baby, the son that was born to you and me, ill-fated parents. He will have no benefit from you, Hektor, now that you are dead, nor you from him.’

‘She lived, and collected the spirit in her breast’ (475). Andromache recovers her composure (returns to life?) and speaks with ‘deep sobs’ (476) of her life before, her life with her husband. She pulls him back to her and talks to him. ‘You in Troy … I in Thebes’ (477) and ‘You, in the house of Hades … I, a widow in these halls’ (482-4). She contrasts what was with what is – the house of Priam with Hades, a childhood in wooded Placus with a widow’s empty rooms. ‘You and I’ – ‘You and I’.

‘Hector, I am wretched, to one fate we were born, we two.’ (477-8). They and Fate are bound together. The family connections began with the laments of Priam and Hecuba, and expand throughout Andromache’s scene: wife, husband, mother-in-law, child, husband’s sisters and brother’s wives. Thoughts flitting between past and present, she thinks of her own father δύσμορος αἰνόμορον (481), ‘ill-fated father of a child who would end badly’. At line 484, widow and orphan find themselves together. ‘Just a baby,’ she says. οὔτε σὺ τούτῳ and οὔτε σοὶ οὗτος: The dead Hector cannot help his son, nor can he help his father. σύ τ’ ἐγώ τε δυσάμμοροι (485) establishes the painful nature of their shared destiny. He is leaving her for the house of death but with his departure, her own life is at an end. Hector was father, mother, husband, brother to her (Il. 6.429-30). Fate and the hands of Achilles have taken everything from her.

Women, to whom their society assigned the task of lamenting and burying the dead (Garland 1985: 29), are very often in the position of being the last commentators on the war or murders described in an epic or a drama, and male poets did not hesitate to allow them to make articulate and poignant observations about the futility of all that their men had prized so highly.

“De triomf van de Doods” by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, c.1562

Of course I do not mean in any way to deny that from a modern point of view the patterns of women’s experience described in Greek myth are severely limited … But perhaps the most important notion that Greek mythology has helped fix in our minds is that women have not only the right but the power to comment on the events that shape their lives, even if they cannot control them; and because they have a voice, they are able to speak not only for themselves, but for humankind in general.

Possible Future Reports and Responses

In the process of revisiting these text selections and writing up a fairly emotional reading (supported by the additional emotional commentary of an earlier reader), a few things stood out for further investigation.

1. The narrator’s involvement, whether by use of evaluative language, comment or apostrophe to characters. E.g. From Patroclus’ fateful request to his death then on through the lengthy narrative retardation that kept the news from reaching Achilles, the narrator’s presence was/seemed to be more intrusive/engaged with the storyworld. Using some corpus stylistic tools to collect and examine the distribution of narratorial devices and usage of emotional vocabulary could better verify or invalidate this intuition.

2. How does such a retardation affect the reader? Does it constantly generate suspense? The narrator finds space halfway through Iliad 17 to remind us that Achilles doesn’t know.

But godlike Achilles did not yet know that Patroklos was dead. They were fighting far away from the fast ships, close under the wall of Troy: so he never supposed that he was dead but that he would press right up to the gates and then return alive, as he could not think either that Patroklos would sack the city without him – or indeed with him: he had heard that many times in secret from his mother, who would always tell him of great Zeus’s will. But this time his mother had not told him of the disaster that had now happened, the death of his most loved companion.
Il. 17.401-11

He’ll still have another 360+ more to wait. I included some of the intervening narrative for the benefit of my reader and my own reading of the selections. How would a first-time reader react to these selections in isolation, as literary responses to the death of a loved one? That’s not a question I can answer but perhaps an idea for an empirical study.

3. These selections were still fairly hefty and the analysis only picked at them. Following collection of data from 1, both could be revisited and scrutinised more rigorously.

4. More Andromache. I only nodded at her scene in Iliad 6 and she has a further speech in Iliad 24 at the burial of Hector. Perhaps ignoring Achilles and comparing Andromaches would be the better course. In any event, I shall let her last words to her husband bring us to a close here.

‘and on your parents, Hektor, you have brought the curse of grief and lamentation. But it is I who will be left the greatest pain and misery – because when you died it was not in your bed, you did not hold out your arms to me or tell me some weighty last word, which I could remember for ever, all the nights and days when I weep for you.’
Il. 24.741-5

References

Goodwin, W. W. (1894) Greek Grammar, London.
Hammond, M. (1987) The Iliad: A New Prose Translation, London.
Lefkowitz, M. (1986) Women in Greek Myth, London.
Morrison, J. V. (1992) Homeric Misdirection, Michigan.
Scully, S. (1986) ‘Studies of Narrative and Speech in the Iliad’, Arethusa 19: 135-53.
Vivante, P. (1997) Homeric Rhythm: A Philosophical Study, Westport.

Further Reading

de Jong, I. J. F. (1987) Narrators and Focalizers, Amsterdam.
Garland, R. (1985) The Greek Way of Death, London.
Griffin, J. (1986) ‘Homeric Words and Speakers’, JHS 106: 36-57.
Koopman, E. M. (2016) ‘Reading suffering: an empirical inquiry into empathic and reflective responses to literary narratives’, PhD. diss., Rotterdam.

Tim Kenny

Research interests include intertextuality, indeterminacies, reader-experience and reader-manipulation.