Essential Reads on Ancient Greek Lament

Books that explore the power of the female voice

by Mariana C.

There is an undeniable truth: female voices are always deeply connected with lament. This doesn't mean that the male voice doesn't feel and suffer human loss, but it is in the female voice, in mothers and wives, that the voice is transformed into song, performance, a ritual dance that allows the community a moment to express the sorrow and rage born of loss, fear, and death. The realm of funerary rites and laments is linked to women. It doesn't matter if they cry for a stranger; lament is always personal because everyone always has someone to mourn for.

On this occasion, I want to talk about five wonderful books that explore, from different fields and perspectives, a theme that is bigger than all of us, but that always unites us regardless of time or culture: the funeral lament.

“Ah me, the pitiful one! Ah me, the mother, so sad it is, of the very best. I gave birth to a faultless and strong son, the very best of heroes. And he shot up equal to a seedling. I nurtured him like a shoot in the choicest spot of the orchard, only to send him off on curved ships to Troy, to fight Trojan men. And I will never be welcoming him back home as returning warrior, back to the House of Peleus. And as long as he lives and sees the light of the sun, he will have sorrow, and though I go to him I cannot help him.”

Iliad, book XVIII, lines 55-ss

Mothers in Mourning by Nicole Loraux

The mimesis within ancient Greek tragedy is not only a representation of feelings and deep emotions; this mimesis is a complex reenactment and serves as a model for the community, allowing a collective consciousness to undergo a process of catharsis.

Nicole Loraux explores this notion using as a common thread the fact that the laments within the tragedy are modeled on real mothers, daughters, and wives and their profound pain.

By doing this, tragedy allows the community to be united, and connected thanks to the shared of feelings and stories, the grief and anger that rests in each regret but especially in mothers.

This is the key ax in her book, mothers in lament, mothers with a penthos alaston, an unforgivable pain. When performing the ritual of lament, mothers are allowed to transcend their physical bodies and social restrictions. They curse, tear their faces and bodies, show their breasts, and cry aloud for their children, and in this rage rests a dangerous power.

Loraux takes us on an exploration of this pain and these models of lament, as well as a historical account of the prohibitions to which it was exposed and the reasons for them. Mother's lament is dangerous and powerful, and it forces the community to feel the pain and also to question war and death.

Available in: French, English, Spanish, and Italian

Epic grief: Personal laments in Homers Iliad by Christos Tsagalis

Sorrow and death are seen in this study as common threads in the Iliad and through this Tsagalis presents us a profound and illuminating study of the lament and a defense of it as a complex construction for communities and within the Homeric poetry.

For this, he makes use of oral theory, semiotics, rhetorical analysis, and especially of the main epic themes that lament explores and how they serve as a fabric to sustain the epic. The divine wrath of Akilleus, the unique lament and funerals he performed for Patroclus, the death of Hector, everything is united thanks to the lament and especially the yooi. Tsagalis explores this type of lament and how it encapsulates all the poetry and meanings of the poem. Equally fundamental is his analysis of the different types of laments and how they were performed, their significance, and how the use of each was of great value and importance. He also explores how these distinctions within the Iliad are fundamental to understanding the meanings of each element and moment.

Finally, the author defends the value of repetition in laments, and how they are instrumental in uniting the community with the individual. The lament transforms itself into a larger tapestry that covers everyone.

Choruses of Young Women in Ancient Greece by Claude Calame

In this book, Claude Calame proposes that the participation of young girls in choruses in ancient Greek poetry was part of an initiation ritual that allowed girls to move towards the role of women within the community. The author explores the use of words typical of dance and ritual singing, invocations to deities, and how their use within the choruses of young girls holds profound meanings. Through anthropology and semiotics, the author analyzes the connection of the choruses with festival songs and rituals for specific gods. Another interesting element studied in his text is the presence of erotic and homoerotic language in some songs from these choruses and the function of it when understanding the roles of young women and the leaders of these groups. On the other hand, fundamental in this analysis is the use of these songs and choruses as a step from puberty to adulthood, something that can be traced in tragedy and also epic, especially connected with Artemis and Aphrodite. In this sense, the choruses and the songs are not only part of the ritual or musical practices but a key element in the transition of women to maturity. The religious and social values ​​are also explored in the text where Calame studies the social values ​​that are connected to the choirs and their hierarchies.

The ritual lament in Greek tradition by Margaret Alexiou

Margaret Alexiou achieves a wonderful job in this book, analyzing the ancient Greek lament from the earliest times, the Byzantine Empire, its echoes in Christianity, and its constant value through time, allowing the reader to take a journey through its evolution. She proposes a study of the lament as a whole world, an element that forms a cosmos in itself, and invites us to understand it within a giant tradition, within the ritual, and as an individual and communal voice, especially feminine. In this text, the author makes use of anthropological, documentary sources, presenting testimonies of various women, from different parts of Greece and different kinds of life, and tells us how they have experienced mourning and lamentation, which is itself a truly moving, sad and beautiful element in the construction of this study. She demonstrates how regret allows the individual to release the pain thanks to the community that understands it. This is inevitably linked to the study and understanding of epic poetry, Homeric poetry, and the tradition attached to figures such as Briseid, Helen, Hecuba, and Akilleus. Finally, another of the thorough-provoking and deeply illuminating elements that she explores in the book is the connection that could be seen in the lament of the virgin within the Christian religion and how they built it at a certain moment as a woman, a Greek mother, and a ritual lament that can be echoed in every mother, wife, and daughter. Lament is part of a ritual always, the song is part of a divine connection, and the dance and performance that women carry out is part of a larger ritual, an infinite one. Just as the imperishable glory of heroes is always sung, the lament is also imperishable, is also always sung, and is part of a world where kleos and sorrow are always connected.

Available in: English and Greek.

The Captive woman's lament by Casey Dué

Following ideas proposed by Aristotle and the catharsis process, Casey Dué discusses how women's lament works as a conduit for individual pain and deep sorrow, but at the same time as a complete mechanism where the community, the city, can understand and feel pain, pity, sorrow and externalize feelings that are otherwise kept inside. Based on the use of specific terms and models, Dué argues that many of the speeches and repetitions in male and female are ritualistic participation, are indeed echoes of the lament language, but are sometimes missed at first. Male voices, hero voices, found a way to talk about sadness and extreme pain in regret that are usually not allowed for in the idea of ​​masculinity. At the same time, this performance of pain allows the community to express those feelings that are obscure, and restricted, allowing the city to be free of feeling and crying aloud inside a ritual moment and practice. Through the lament, the song and performance of pain transform into a communication tool on a large scale, on a cosmic level, for the entire community at all times. Heroes' voices, mothers' voices, they all act as a unity when it is sorrow and wrath that unite them, they can for a moment occupy the same place and value because they understand the pain and loss in the other.

The funerary rites, their songs and dances, the laments, and physical expressions of grief that women carried out are fundamental to understanding the community, behaviors, and politics of antiquity. Likewise, ritual laments are a key weapon for our understanding of epic and tragedy, but especially of the implicit meanings and messages that rest in the discourses of heroes and heroines, in the repetitions and patterns of Homer, and the different contents of choruses both inside and out of ancient Greek tragedy. Far from being silenced, women were bearers of great voices, principal actors in rites that were central to society.

About Mariana:

Mariana is a student of Humanities, and during the last few years she has been studying various subjects related to Classical Philology. Her interest in ancient languages and literatures, particularly Ancient Greek and Latin, has been the central axis of her academic interest. Her studies focus on the works of Homer, Greek tragedy, and classical literature and ancestral texts. You can follow Mariana @marianaownroom on Substack and Instagram.