Akhos and Penthos, Both Meaning 'Grief' Or 'Song of Grief' = 'Lament'

Dialogue 03

Two key words for this dialogue: akhos and penthos, both meaning 'grief' or 'song of grief' = 'lament'

Passage (A) Iliad I 188-191: The son of Peleus [= Achilles] felt grief [akhos], and his heart within his shaggy breast was divided [190] whether to draw his sword, push the others aside, and kill the son of Atreus [= Agamemnon], or to restrain himself and check his anger [kholos].

Passage (B) From an ancient plot-summary of the lost epic Aithiopis (‘Song of the Ethiopians’): "The Amazon Penthesileia, daughter of Ares and Thracian by birth, comes to Troy as an ally of the Trojans. In the middle of her aristeia [= greatest epic moments], Achilles kills her and the Trojans arrange for her funeral. Thersites, reviling and reproaching Achilles by saying that he loved Penthesileia, is killed by Achilles."

The name of this Amazon, Penthesileia, means 'penthos for the people [laos]'; it is parallel to the name of Achilles, which is understood in Homeric poetry to mean 'akhos for the people [laos]'.

Passage (C) Repetition from Dialogue 02 Passage (D) Iliad IX 550-602: So long as Meleager was in the field things went badly for the Curetes, and for all their numbers they could not hold their ground under the city walls; but in the course of time anger [kholos] entered Meleager in his thinking [noos], as will happen sometimes even to a sensible man. He was incensed with his mother Althaea, and therefore stayed at home with his wife, whom he had courted as a youth, fair Kleopatra, {note 1} who was daughter of Marpessa daughter of Euenus, and of Idēs a man then living. It was he who took his bow and faced King Apollo himself for fair Marpessa’s sake; her father and mother then named her Alcyone, {note 2} because her mother had lamented with the plaintive strains of the halcyon-bird when Phoebus Apollo had carried her off. Meleager, then, stayed at home with wife, nursing the anger which he felt by reason of his mother’s curses. His mother, grieving for the death of her brother, prayed to the gods, and beat the earth with her hands, calling upon Hades and on terrifying Persephone as she went down on her knees, and her bosom was wet with tears as she prayed that they should kill her son - and an Erinys that roams in darkness and knows no mercy heard her, from below in Erebus. Then was heard the din of battle about the gates of Calydon, and the dull thump of the battering against their walls. Now the elders of the Aetolians sought out Meleager; they sent the chief of their priests, and begged him to come out and help them, promising him a great reward. They told him to choose fifty acres, the most fertile in the plain of Calydon, the one-half vineyard and the other open plough-land. The old warrior Oeneus implored him, standing at the threshold of his room and beating the doors in supplication. His sisters and his mother herself implored him over and over again, but he kept on refusing them all the more; those of his comrades who were nearest and dearest [philtatoi] to him also begged him, but they could not move him till the enemy was battering at the very doors of his chamber, and the Curetes had scaled the walls and were setting fire to the city. Then at last his sorrowing wife detailed the horrors that befall those whose city is taken; she reminded him how the men are slain, and the city is given over to the flames, while the women and children are carried off into captivity; {note 3} when he heard all this, his heart was touched, and he put on his armor to go forth. Thus yielding to his heart he saved the city of the Aetolians; but they now gave him nothing of those rich rewards that they had offered earlier, and though he saved the city he took nothing by it. Do not then, my near and dear one [philos], think this way; do not let a daimōn steer you in this direction. When the ships are burning it will be a harder matter to save them.

{note 1} It is essential for the plot of the macro-narrative that Kleopatra is a name that means the same thing as the name Patrokleēs = Patroklos.

{note 2} Alcyone is the second name of the wife of Meleager. In ancient Greek lore, the alcyon / halcyon is a bird that sings songs of lament over the destruction of cities.

Passage (D) Alcman song 1 lines 39-43 "And I sing the radiance of Agido, as I look upon her like the sun, which Agido summons to shine as witness."

Passage (E) Iliad VI 404-432 Hector smiled as he looked at the boy, but he did not speak, and Andromache stood next to him weeping and taking his hand in her own. "Dear husband," said she, "your valor will bring you to destruction; think of your infant son, and on my hapless self who before long shall be your widow - for the Achaeans will set upon you in a body and kill you. It would be better for me, should I lose you, to lie dead and buried, for I shall have nothing left to comfort me when you are gone, except for grief [akhos]. I have neither father nor mother now. Achilles slew my father when he destroyed Thebe the beautiful city of the Cilicians. ... I had seven brothers in my father's house, but on the same day they all went down into the house of Hades. Achilles killed them as they were with their sheep and cattle. My mother - her who had been queen of all the land under Mount Placus - he brought here with the spoil, and freed her for a great sum, but the archer - queen Artemis took her away from the house of your father. O Hector - you who to me are father, mother, brother, and dear husband - have mercy on me; stay here at this wall; make not your child fatherless, and your wife a widow.