Dead and Gentle Forever

Briseis' Lament for Patroklos in Iliad 19

This is one of a few posts dedicated to Iliad 19. As a reminder, these posts will remain free, but there is an option to be a financial supporter. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis.

Following the political performance of reconciliation in Iliad 19, the narrative turns back to the personal. We see the resumption of mourning for Patroklos and as the epic moves towards Achilles’ return to battle, it starts to foreshadow Achilles’ death. The plot-link between these two movements is Briseis as she moves from Agamemnon’s possession to Achilles’. We—along with the Achaeans—witness Briseis’ surrender and then we get to see her mourn Patroklos.

Homer Iliad 19. 281-302

“Then when Briseis, like golden Aphrodite herself,
Saw Patroklos run through with sharp bronze,
Poured herself over him while she wailed and ripped
At her chest, tender neck, and pretty face with her hands.
And while mourning the woman spoke like one of the goddesses:

“Patroklos, you were the dearest to wretched me and
I left you alive when I went from your dwelling.
And now I find you here dead, leader of the armies,
When I return. Troubles are always wresting me from troubles.
The husband my father and mother gave me to
I watched run through with sharp bronze in front of the city,
And then the three brothers my mother bore,
Dear siblings, all met their fate on that day.
But you would not ever let me weep when swift Achilles
Was killing my husband and when he sacked the city of divine Munêtos—
No, you used to promise to make me the wedded wife
Of divine Achilles, someone he would lead home in his ships to Phthia,
where you would light the marriage torches among the Myrmidons.
So now I weep for you, dead and gentle forever.”
So she spoke, while weeping….

Βρισηῒς δ’ ἄρ’ ἔπειτ’ ἰκέλη χρυσέῃ ᾿Αφροδίτῃ
ὡς ἴδε Πάτροκλον δεδαϊγμένον ὀξέϊ χαλκῷ,
ἀμφ’ αὐτῷ χυμένη λίγ’ ἐκώκυε, χερσὶ δ’ ἄμυσσε
στήθεά τ’ ἠδ’ ἁπαλὴν δειρὴν ἰδὲ καλὰ πρόσωπα.
εἶπε δ’ ἄρα κλαίουσα γυνὴ ἐϊκυῖα θεῇσι·
Πάτροκλέ μοι δειλῇ πλεῖστον κεχαρισμένε θυμῷ
ζωὸν μέν σε ἔλειπον ἐγὼ κλισίηθεν ἰοῦσα,
νῦν δέ σε τεθνηῶτα κιχάνομαι ὄρχαμε λαῶν
ἂψ ἀνιοῦσ’· ὥς μοι δέχεται κακὸν ἐκ κακοῦ αἰεί.
ἄνδρα μὲν ᾧ ἔδοσάν με πατὴρ καὶ πότνια μήτηρ
εἶδον πρὸ πτόλιος δεδαϊγμένον ὀξέϊ χαλκῷ,
τρεῖς τε κασιγνήτους, τούς μοι μία γείνατο μήτηρ,
κηδείους, οἳ πάντες ὀλέθριον ἦμαρ ἐπέσπον.
οὐδὲ μὲν οὐδέ μ’ ἔασκες, ὅτ’ ἄνδρ’ ἐμὸν ὠκὺς ᾿Αχιλλεὺς
ἔκτεινεν, πέρσεν δὲ πόλιν θείοιο Μύνητος,
κλαίειν, ἀλλά μ’ ἔφασκες ᾿Αχιλλῆος θείοιο
κουριδίην ἄλοχον θήσειν, ἄξειν τ’ ἐνὶ νηυσὶν
ἐς Φθίην, δαίσειν δὲ γάμον μετὰ Μυρμιδόνεσσι.
τώ σ’ ἄμοτον κλαίω τεθνηότα μείλιχον αἰεί.
῝Ως ἔφατο κλαίουσ’…

This scene is remarkable for both its contents and its place in the poem. It is the only place in the Iliad where Briseis speaks. The emotion she shows for Patroklos helps in part to prime us for Achilles’ subsequent lament and also to help to further characterize Patroklos to help us to understand the scale of his loss. Briseis’ evocation of his tenderness as an intermediary, as Achilles’ gentler, kinder counterpart both re-centers his concern for others as explored prior to his entry into battle in book 16 and anticipates Achilles’ revelation that he always imagined Patroklos would be the one to live, to care for Achilles’ son, and to return to Peleus in Phthia.

But all of this summary serves to redouble the way the Iliad instrumentalizes Briseis to serve Achilles’ needs and the plot of the Iliad. Indeed, even the way we refer to her is indirect: her name is her father’s name.

D Scholia to the Iliad:

“The Poet seems to use their patronymic names and not their personal ones, for other ancient accounts notes that [Chryseis] was named Astynomê and [Briseis] was named Hippodameia.”

ἔοικε δὲ πατρωνυμικῶς τὰ ὀνόματα αὐτῶν σχηματίζειν ὁ Ποιητὴς, καὶ οὐ κυρίως. ὡς γὰρ οἱ ἄλλοι ἀρχαῖοι ἱστοροῦσιν, ἡ μὲν, ᾿Αστυνόμη ἐκαλεῖτο, ἡ δὲ, ῾Ιπποδάμεια.

Briseis’ story connects to other themes in the epic. As Casey Dué shows in her Homeric Variations on a Lament by Briseis., Briseis’ lament recalls Andromache’s speech in book 6 and also foreshadows the deaths of Hektor and Achilles.

Briseis and Phoenix (?), red-figure kylix, c. 490 BCE, Louvre (G 152)[1]

There’s some lack of clarity in the Iliad itself about Briseis’ ‘relationship’ with Achilles. It should be clear beyond a doubt that ancient audiences could have assumed that Briseis was subject to sexual violence as a war captive. Her husband, brothers, relatives all died when Achilles sacked her city. Yet some scholars have seen ambiguity here. When the heralds arrive in book 1 to take Briseis to Agamemnon the narrative reads “she went along with them, unwilling, and Achilles sat, apart from his companions, weeping...” ἣ δ' ἀέκουσ' ἅμα τοῖσι γυνὴ κίεν· αὐτὰρ ᾿Αχιλλεὺς / δακρύσας ἑτάρων ἄφαρ ἕζετο νόσφι λιασθείς, 1.348-139).

Ancient scholars seem less interested in Briseis’ feelings here than in Achilles. A scholion hedges its bets about whether or not Briseis is upset because she just loves Achilles so much or because she acts this way (generically) as a war prize. Here’s the commentary on this scene from the scholia on book 1:

“unwilling”: This is because she loves her man, as her appearance makes clear. As another explanation, this distinguishes her as a war prize and through one phrase the whole nature of her character has been clarified.

ἔστι γὰρ φίλανδρος, ὡς τὸ πρόσωπον αὐτῆς δηλοῖ. δευτέραν δὲ ταύτην ὁρίζεται εἶναι αἰχμαλωσίαν καὶ διὰ μιᾶς λέξεως ὁλόκληρον ἡμῖν ἦθος προσώπου δεδήλωκεν. b(BCE3)T 

“Cried about from his companion”...otherwise this also shows that because he is covetous of honor he is upset about the insult and is deprived of the customary intimacy, but perhaps he also pities the woman being taking away unwillingly. This characterizes him loving extremely.”

δακρύσας ἑτάρων: ...ἄλλως τε καὶ φιλότιμος ὢν ἀνιᾶται τῇ ὕβρει παλαιᾶς τε συνηθείας στέρεται, ἴσως δὲ καὶ τὸ γύναιον ἀκουσίως ἀπαλλαττόμενον ἐλεεῖ. ἄκρως δὲ ἐρῶντα χαρακτηρίζει·

Here, the scholia echo the epic in seeing the movement of Briseis as an opportunity to characterize Achilles rather than give any insight into the experience of a woman who ends up suffering even as she becomes the cause of a conflict that brings harms to others. The denial of any agency to Briseis or concern about her experiences differs from the two other primary women in the text—Andromache and Helen—but we may be able to see her treatment as a metonym to help frame the epic’s presentation of those more fully-realized characters. If the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon is relativized as “about a girl” in a way that implies a judgment on the whole Trojan War, then the cumulative impact may be to limit or deny agency to women in general and Helen in specific.

So one question is how we can understand the Briseis’ relationship to Achilles in the epic’s terms. The evidence about their relationship in the poem is mixed as well, but easier to understand if we think about the rhetorical context. Achilles in book 9 claims that Briseis is a “wife fit to my heart” (ἄλοχον θυμαρέα , 9.336) but then at the beginning of book 19 when speaks to Agamemnon wishes that “Artemis had killed her among the ships with an arrow / on that day when I took her after sacking Lurnessos” (τὴν ὄφελ' ἐν νήεσσι κατακτάμεν ῎Αρτεμις ἰῷ / ἤματι τῷ ὅτ' ἐγὼν ἑλόμην Λυρνησσὸν ὀλέσσας,19.59-60).

17th Century Tapestry based on Rubens’ “Briseis Returned to Achilles?

Some might suggest that Achilles has changed his mind during the course of the epic, that he has gone from weeping over losing Briseis to wishing she were dead after losing Achilles. However, it seems clear to me that Achilles is rhetorically amplifying his loss (and a scholion agrees, writing “he amplified the insult by calling her his wife and fit to his heart in additino” (ηὔξησε τὴν ὕβριν ἄλοχον αὐτὴν  εἰπὼν καὶ θυμαρέα). This claim, however, does not totally undermine a possibility that Achilles is actually fond of Briseis: if he is rhetorically amplifying his loss in book 9, could he not also be rhetorically diminishing his attachment in book 19 in service of his desire to go immediately to war?

It is nearly impossible to disentangle these possibilities—indeed, I think the ambiguity is important for audiences to be able to choose their interpretation of Achilles’ feelings. One note that is useful from the scholia is the recognition that here Achilles calls her a girl (κούρην) here instead of a “prize” (γέρας). The shift in language both assists in connecting this conflict to the larger Trojan War and it also downplays the conflict between Achilles as personal instead of political (καὶ κούρην, οὐ γέρας αὐτὴν καλεῖ). Another scholion adds that Achilles amplifies this because of the death of Patroklos.

In other traditions, like Ovid’s Heroides 3, Briseis is depicted as desperately writing to Achilles for his attention. In the post-classical retelling of the stories after the Iliad, Quintus of Smyrna presents Briseis as leading the mourning for Achilles. The language and motifs Quintus chooses show an integration of themes from the speeches of Andromache in the Iliad. Yet even here, it seems that Briseis is still instrumentalized in service of Achilles’ story.

Quintus, Posthomerica 3.551-573

“Of all the women, Briseis felt the most terrible grief
in her heart within, the companion of warring Achilles.
She turned over his corpse and tore at her fine skin
With both hands and from her delicate chest
Bloody bruises rose up from the force of her blows—
You might even say it was like blood poured over milk.
Yet she still shined even as she mourned in pain
And her whole form exuded grace.
This is the kind of speech she made while mourning:

“Oh what endless horror I have suffered.
Nothing that happened to me before this was so great
Not the death of my brothers nor the loss of my country,

Nothing exceeds your death. You were my sacred day
And the light of the sun and the gentle life,
My hope for good and tireless defense against pain—
You were better by far than any gift, than my parents even—
You were everything alone for me even though I was enslaved.

You took me as your bedmate and seized me from a slave’s labor.
But now? Some other Achaean will take me away in his ships
To fertile Sparta or dry and thirsty Argos
Where I will again suffer terrible things working away,
Apart from you and miserable. I only wish that
The earth had covered over me before I saw your death.”

πασάων δ’ ἔκπαγλον ἀκηχεμένη κέαρ ἔνδον
Βρισηὶς παράκοιτις ἐυπτολέμου Ἀχιλῆος
ἀμφὶ νέκυν στρωφᾶτο καὶ ἀμφοτέρῃς παλάμῃσι
δρυπτομένη χρόα καλὸν ἀύτεεν· ἐκ δ’ ἁπαλοῖο
στήθεος αἱματόεσσαι ἀνὰ σμώδιγγες ἄερθεν
θεινομένης· φαίης κεν ἐπὶ γλάγος αἷμα χέασθαι
φοίνιον. ἀγλαΐη δὲ καὶ ἀχνυμένης ἀλεγεινῶς
ἱμερόεν μάρμαιρε, χάρις δέ οἱ ἄμπεχεν εἶδος.
τοῖον δ’ ἔκφατο μῦθον ὀιζυρὸν γοόωσα·
“Ὤ μοι ἐγὼ πάντων περιώσιον αἰνὰ παθοῦσα·
οὐ γάρ μοι τόσσον περ ἐπήλυθεν ἄλλό τι πῆμα,
οὔτε κασιγνήτων οὔτ’ εὐρυχόρου περὶ πάτρης,
ὅσσον σεῖο θανόντος· ἐπεὶ σύ μοι ἱερὸν ἦμαρ
καὶ φάος ἠελίοιο πέλες καὶ μείλιχος αἰὼν
ἐλπωρή τ’ ἀγαθοῖο καὶ ἄσπετον ἄλκαρ ἀνίης
πάσης τ’ ἀγλαΐης πολὺ φέρτερος ἠδὲ τοκήων
ἔπλεο· πάντα γὰρ οἶος ἔης δμωῇ περ ἐούσῃ,
καί ῥά με θῆκας ἄκοιτιν ἑλὼν ἄπο δούλια ἔργα.
νῦν δέ τις ἐν νήεσσιν Ἀχαιῶν ἄξεται ἄλλος
Σπάρτην εἰς ἐρίβωλον ἢ ἐς πολυδίψιον Ἄργος·
καί νύ κεν ἀμφιπολεῦσα κακὰς ὑποτλήσομ’ ἀνίας
σεῦ ἀπονοσφισθεῖσα δυσάμμορος. ὡς ὄφελόν με
γαῖα χυτὴ ἐκάλυψε πάρος σέο πότμον ἰδέσθαι.

I imagine that in antiquity there were other narrative traditions that engaged with Homer’s women differently, centering their experiences. But we don’t have them. We do have Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls. As a remarkable anonymous essay on Briseis shows (“Just a Girl: Being Briseis”) just how strongly Briseis’ treatment can resonate with audiences today. It is hard for me to imagine that there weren’t similar responses among Homeric audiences over time.

A short bibliography on Briseis

Clark, W. P.. “Iliad IX,336 and the meaning of ἄλοχος in Homer.” Classical Philology, 1940, pp. 188-190.

Dué, Casey. Homeric variations on a lament by Briseis. Greek Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches. Lanham (Md.): Rowman and Littlefield, 2002.

Fantuzzi, Marco. Achilles in love: intertextual studies. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Pr., 2012.

Fisher, Rachel R.. « Homophrosyne » and women in the « Iliad ». [S. l.]: [s. n.], 2018.

Lambrou, Ioannis L.. “Achilles and Helen and Homer’s telling silence.” Mnemosyne, Ser. 4, vol. 73, no. 5, 2020, pp. 705-728. Doi: 10.1163/1568525X-12342656

Pucci, Pietro. “Antiphonal lament between Achilles and Briseis.”. Colby Quarterly 258-272.

Wright, Ian. “The wife of Achilles.” Mnemosyne, Ser. 4, vol. 69, no. 1, 2016, pp. 113-118. Doi: 10.1163/1568525X-12341949