Loss and Grief

The Theme in the Work

The grief of the Iliad arrives before the death and goes on after the poem ends. In Book VI, Andromache reminds Hector what Achilles has already taken from her: her father, her seven brothers in a single day, and her mother, dead after being ransomed. For that reason he is for her father, mother, brother, and husband, and she begs him not to make their son an orphan. Hector answers that the pain that troubles him most is hers, carried away in tears by some Achaean to weave in Argos, and that he would rather be covered with earth than hear her cry. The servants, seeing Andromache return, mourn Hector while he is still alive.

The war shows the grief of both sides in named families. In Book XIV, Peneleos sends word to the parents of Ilioneus, their only son, that they should weep for him, and that the wife of Promachus will not rejoice in her husband when the Achaeans sail away from Troy. In Book XVII, Achilles' horses stand motionless like the stone of a tomb, weeping for the lack of their charioteer, and Zeus, seeing them, says that nothing is more worthy of pity than man; Antilochus loses his voice on hearing from Menelaus that Patroclus has died, but he obeys and runs to bring the news.

In Achilles, grief is a fallen body and a vow. In Book XVIII, a black cloud of pain covers him, he pours ash on his head, stretches out in the dust and tears at his hair, and the moan reaches his mother at the bottom of the sea. He asks to die at once, because he did not come to the aid of his companion, and he promises Patroclus that he will not hold the funeral rites before bringing back the armor and the head of Hector. In Book XIX, his pain appears in degrees: he refuses to eat, says that no worse harm could strike him than the death of his friend, nor than the death of his father, and Briseis, seeing the body, weeps for what he had promised her, to make her his lawful wife; the other women weep for Patroclus as a pretext and each for her own sorrows.

Hector's death brings the grief back to Troy. In Book XXII, Priam and Hecuba beg from the top of the wall that he come in, and Hecuba opens her dress and shows her breast. When the body is dragged away, Priam wants to go alone to the ships, and Andromache falls backward before the wall and imagines her son Astyanax orphaned, cast out from the tables of his father's friends, and she vows to burn the garments the women have woven, because her husband will not lie in them.

Rites give shape to grief. In Book XXIII, the soul of Patroclus appears to Achilles in a dream, asks for burial and for his hand, and asks that the bones of the two be kept in a single urn; Achilles cuts the lock of hair that his father had promised to the river Spercheius and places it in the hand of the dead man, saying that he will not return to his dear native land. In Book XXIV, Priam weeps for Hector fallen at the feet of Achilles, and Achilles weeps for his father and, at times, for Patroclus, so that the groans of the two fill the house. The poem ends in the laments of Andromache, of Hecuba, and of Helen, one after another, and in the funeral.

The grief of the Iliad is made of gestures and of accounts. The gestures are in the bodies: ash, hair, veil, breast, urn, a horse's tear. The accounts appear in the speeches: who loses what, and what each loss takes from those who remain. Andromache measures the harm by what her son will no longer have at the table, Achilles by his father's death, Briseis by the promise that comes undone. There is one thing more that the poem does not let pass: the women weep for Patroclus, the narrator says, as a pretext and each for her own sorrows, so that mourning one dead man is also mourning all those the war has already taken. Achilles' wrath does not end in grief; it changes its target, and only in Book XXIII and Book XXIV does it become rite.

Where It Appears

• Book VI: Andromache tells Hector that Achilles killed her father and her seven brothers, and that her mother died after being ransomed, and so he is for her father, mother, brother, and husband.
• Book VI: Hector says that what hurts him most is not the future grief of Troy nor Priam's, but Andromache's, carried away in tears by an Achaean to weave in Argos.
• Book XIV: Peneleos tells the Trojans to weep for Ilioneus, the only son of Phorbas, and says that the wife of Promachus will not rejoice in her husband when the Achaeans sail away from Troy.
• Book XVII: Achilles' horses stand motionless like the stone of a tomb, shedding hot tears, longing for their charioteer Patroclus, and Zeus takes pity on them.
• Book XVII: Antilochus loses his voice and his eyes fill with tears on hearing from Menelaus that Patroclus has died, but he obeys and runs to bring the news to Achilles.
• Book XVIII: Achilles hears the news of Patroclus's death from Antilochus, pours ash on his head, stretches out in the dust and tears at his hair, and his moan reaches Thetis at the bottom of the sea.
• Book XVIII: Achilles promises Patroclus that he will not hold the funeral rites before bringing the armor and the head of Hector, and speaks to the dead man as one who gives an account to him.
• Book XIX: Briseis, seeing Patroclus dead, throws herself upon him and mourns him, because he had promised to make her Achilles' lawful wife after the death of her husband.
• Book XIX: Achilles refuses to eat and says that no worse harm could strike him than the death of Patroclus, nor the news of his father's death, who perhaps weeps in Phthia for a son like him.
• Book XXII: Priam and Hecuba beg Hector, from the top of the wall, to come in, and Hecuba opens her dress and bares her breast to remind him of the son she nursed.
• Book XXII: Andromache sees her husband dragged by the horses and imagines her son Astyanax orphaned, cast out from his father's friends' tables and returning in tears to his widowed mother.
• Book XXIII: Achilles cuts the lock of hair that his father had promised to the river Spercheius and gives it to Patroclus, saying that he will no longer return to his dear native land.
• Book XXIII: The soul of Patroclus asks Achilles that the bones of the two be kept in a single urn, the golden amphora that his mother gave him, because they grew up together.
• Book XXIV: Priam weeps for Hector fallen at Achilles' feet, and Achilles weeps for his father and, at times, for Patroclus, so that the groans of the two fill the house.
• Book XXIV: Andromache, Hecuba, and Helen mourn Hector one after another, and each lament also says what the woman loses with him.

Passages

Andromache gathers into her husband everything the war has taken from her.

Peneleos returns to the Trojans the grief they gave, and the house of the dead man is named.

Achilles' horses weep for their charioteer like the stones of a tomb.

Antilochus brings Achilles the news of Patroclus's death.

Achilles tells Patroclus that the burial must wait for vengeance.

Briseis mourns Patroclus for what he had promised her.

Achilles measures his grief by his father's death.

Andromache burns what the women wove, since the body will not wear it.

Achilles gives the lock of hair to the dead man and says he will not return.

Priam and Achilles weep, each for his own dead.