Professional Documents
Culture Documents
husband’s body pivots around Hektor’s appeal to Achilles not ‘to let dogs
…. devour’ him (Iliad 22. 339) and Achilles’ response to feast personally
on his enemy’s corpse is the real point for consideration (umm, it’s not a
case of ‘Guess who’s coming to dinner, but guess what’s for dinner’).The
to Segal (1971) is a compound verb that occurs only once in the Iliad
and that’s here in the Iliad noting the poignancy of the expression, with a
But Homer has deviated from the formulaic language of ‘feasting on the
not what – us the reader – have been prepared for albeit we re-consider
Achilles’ wish to ‘consume’ Hektor’s body raw. The eating of raw flesh
has not been documented in the Iliad until this point not even in
that put people off their ‘grain’ (so to speak) in favour of anti-social
feasting. Later on, Hecuba, like Achilles towards Patroklus, in grief for
the loss of her son wishes to overcome the cause of her pain through
being its own agency of defilement and death, that results in the total
defilement of the corpse and refusal of proper burial rites, (and for the
establish religious obligations: namely to bury the dead. And this comes
from the gods. Although Patroklus’ eidolon appeals to Achilles for burial,
dawn). Thetis is sent to have ‘pep-talk’ with her son (24.128-137) where
she more or less states ‘life’ too short!’. The outcome is that Patroklus
necessity (xpn) to bury the dead after 1 day of mourning (Iliad 19.228).
funerary ritual.
flexible; this does not refer to the entire process but that some features –
Cutting of hair
Cremation
Funeral games
thrice around the walls of Troy, wailing and lamentation may heard from
the city walls. At this juncture, we know that Troy has now met its own
fate, the fall of Hektor (22.401-3) is the death of his city and the
to take place here, the more poignant example is later on with the divine
reading of the text it appears that Achilles orders the cleansing of the
gods have already completed this task. But from this point, we see a
kind of religious customary practice with the human realm. The whole
scene between Priam and Achilles is to remember the dead, seeing the
acceptance of the futility of defilement and acceptance of the inevitability
The initial pseudo-burial ritual and the adorning of the corpse with Trojan
(Cf. the games and Patroklus’ funeral for further examples), and for a