Rediscovering Homer: Women of the Iliad (Part VI)
荷马再发现之四：《伊利亚特》中的女人们
Harvard@home
哈佛远程教学项目
【说明】
这是哈佛大学首批推出的远程教育项目之一：荷马再发现(系列讲座④)
主讲人：
Mary Ebbott, associate professor of classics at the College of the Holy Cross
玛莉·埃博特(Mary Ebbott)：毕业于哈佛大学古典学系古典语文学专业，纳吉教授的弟子，获博士学位后在麻州圣十字学院任教。
Casey Dué, associate professor of classics at the University of Houston
凯瑟·迪欧（Casey Dué）：曾在哈佛大学古典学系攻读博士学位，纳吉教授的弟子和助教；毕业后在休斯敦大学的古典学教研中独当一面。
Gregory Nagy: 格雷戈里·纳吉 教授 (简介见导论部分)
讲座关键词：《伊利亚特》 女性 挽歌 挽歌传统 史诗叙事
讲座内容
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Women of the Iliad
The Iliad incorporates within in its own heroic song tradition the conventions and poetics of a number of other song traditions, including and especially women's song traditions. Of all the song and speech traditions that are incorporated into Homeric poetry, lament is perhaps the most pervasive. Achilles and Hektor are lamented repeatedly throughout the Iliad. As Mary Ebbott has discussed in a recent article, through laments for husbands, parents, and children women can comment on their own sufferings, life history, and status within the community.
Video Clip 1
Helen's lament for Hektor reveals reactions to her that otherwise go unspoken in the Iliad. We can see the traditional language and conventional themes of lament in her speeches throughout the Iliad.
Video Clip 2
The laments that women sing in the Iliad are both traditional, in that they incorporate conventions of Greek lament that are still alive today, and personal in that they shows us, as nowhere else in the Iliad, women's own life experiences, from bride to widow to captive. The songs of lament are also the first songs sung in remembrance of the dead hero, and are therefore important in defining the kleos of the hero (see the Concept of the Hero page for more on kleos). Lament songs can also rouse feelings of vengeance over this death, and thus in some contexts it is considered dangerous to allow women to lament.
This duality is already a fundamental aspect of the ritual lament for the dead in Greek tradition. As Margaret Alexiou has shown on a functional level: "objectively, it is designed to honor and appease the dead, while subjectively, it gives expression to a wide range of conflicting emotions." (The Ritual Lament in the Greek Tradition, p. 55.)
Traditional lament language occurs in women's speeches throughout the Iliad. The song sings not only about teh deceased but may also include sentiments of the woman's vulnerability without the man's protection, how she is perceived by others, and how she wishes things were different or how things might have been if the dead man had not died. The past, present and possible future are all addressed in a avariety of ways. The strong presence of the lament tradition in a song that is ultimately about the hero's mortality is woven into the speeches of characters like Briseis, Andromache and Helen, even when they are not singing a formal lament at a funeral.
Briseis and Andromache
Modern Greek laments, like those of the Iliad, are often erotic and contain elements of love song and song of grief combined. The following poem by the modern Greek poet Ritsos captures this combination:
A poem by Ritsos, translation by George Syrimis
mallià zgourà pou pàno tous ta dhàhtila pernoùsa
tis nìhtes pou kimòsouna ke plài sou xagripnoùsa
frìdhi mou gaitanòfridho ke kontilogramèno
kàmara pou to vlèma mou koùrniaze anapamèno
màtia glarà pou mèsa tous antìfengan ta màkri
proinoù ouranoù ke pàskiza min ta thambòsi dhàkri
hìli mou moskomìristo pou os làlages anthìzan
lithària ke xeròdhendra ki aidhònia fterougìzan
Curly hair through which my fingers I would pass,
the nights you slept and next to you I kept vigil
That eyebrow for me, sword-curved eyebrow and pencil-drawn
- an arch in which my gaze would nest in peace.
Blue eyes in which would shine the distances
of a morning sky, and I toiled that they would not be blurred by tears.
Those sweet-smelling lips for me, when you spoke there was blossoming of stones and dried out trees, and nightingales would flutter.
来源：Harvard@Home
