6. The classification of ancient and modern laments and songs to the dead

The difficulties involved in making a satisfactory classification of ancient types of lament arise from the conflicting nature of the evidence. Classical and post-classical poetic usage tended to treat the various terms as synonymous, with few real distinctions. In an attempt to impose order, Alexandrian and later scholars neatly divided and defined, but with such variety of criteria that it is impossible to know what to accept as genuine archaic and classical usage, and what to reject as subjective theorising. [1] Confusion in the terminology is inherent in the classical literary tradition, but we should not therefore infer that there had never been any distinct types of ancient lament. The problem of poetic forms and their origins cannot be solved in isolation, without an investigation of their relation to ritual and official practice. For this reason, I shall attempt in this chapter to indicate only the more basic distinctions, and to trace which types of lament have survived in Greek tradition and how they were transmitted.

Both thrênos and góos are words of ancient Indo-European origin, meaning a shrill cry. [2] In their most primitive form, these laments probably consisted mainly of inarticulate wailing over the dead man. But etymology, though an invaluable indication of the origins and of the antiquity of words, cannot be pressed too far as a guide to their subsequent development. By the time thrênos and góos first appear in Greek literature, they had clearly emerged from this primitive stage. [3]

It was suggested in chapter 1 that Homeric and archaic usage may {102|103} have distinguished thrênos and góos according to the ritual manner of their performance, using thrênos for the set dirge composed and performed by the professional mourners, and góos for the spontaneous weeping of the kinswomen. Further, early instances point to the thrêno s as more ordered and polished, often associate with divine performers and a dominant musical element. [4] This is reflected in the extant choral thrênoi of Pindar and Simonides, which are characterised by a calm restraint, gnomic and consolatory in tone rather than passionate and ecstatic; the góos, on the other hand, while less restrained, was from Homer onwards more highly individualised, and since it was spoken rather than sung, it tended to develop a narrative rather than a musical form. [5]

These are tentative distinctions, drawn from pre-classical and fragmentary evidence only. In the classical period, the thrênos was still remembered as a distinct type of lyric poetry, but it was interchangeable with góos, especially in tragedy, and could be used to refer to any kind of lament, not necessarily for the dead. [6] The older distinctions are partially retained in the later scholarly definitions of thrênos as a lament for the dead which contains praise, sung before or after burial or on the various occasions for mourning at the tomb; the element of the góos on the other hand is less frequently emphasized after tragedy, and in the Lexica it is glossed with thrênos. [7]

The kommó s is first known as a specific type of tragic lament. The examples collected and analysed by Diehl suggest that it was accompanied by wild gestures and associated with Asiatic ecstasy, like the iálemos. [8] These eastern connections, which seem to be old, make it unlikely to have been a term exclusive to the tragedians, and it may have evolved as a dramatic form of the ritual antiphonal lament between the professional and predominantly choral mourners on the one hand, and the mainly solo and narrative improvisations of the kinswomen on the other. In tragedy, it retained its specific form and passionate character, but by the Alexandrian period it had become another poetic synonym. [9] Since it is ignored by later scholars, it may be assumed that it had no further literary development outside tragedy.

From the classical period onwards, then, there was a tendency to treat as synonymous the different terms for a poetic lament, which had originally denoted distinct aspects of the ritual lamentation of the women. The explanation may lie partly in the fact that the most usual forms of official lamentation were no long primarily musical or poetic, but rhetorical. Their origins and development are quite distinct. {103|104}

The ancients had no doubt about the mournful and funeral origins of the élegos, deriving it rather dubiously from ἒ ἒ λέγειν (to say é é) and εὖ λέγειν τοὺς κατοιχομένους (to speak well of the departed). [10] Although their etymology is suspect, it is hard to reject entirely their unanimous association of the word with lamentation. The problem is that the early extant elegies range from sympotic to political and military in content, but none is addressed to the dead or even remotely mournful in tone. How can this contradiction be explained?

Although no early mournful élegoi have survived, they are known to have existed. It is possible that Echembrotos, the Peloponnesian poet who was famous for his mournful élegoi accompanied by the aulós, was only one of a school of Dorian elegists, who used the form for a kind of lament; and it was this same Echembrotos whose music to the aulós was disqualified at the Delphic festival in 578 B.C. on the grounds that its mournful character was unsuitable to Apollo. [11] Was it under some kind of pressure from the religious reforms of the sixth century that the mournful élegos was discontinued by the lyric poets, surviving only as a literary term?

Features agreed to be common to the early extant élegoi are the use of alternating lines of hexameter and pentameter, and the concise, commemorative and proverbial style. How can these be reconciled with a hypothetical origin in some kind of lament? First, just as there is some connection between the Homeric thrênos and the thrênoi of Pindar and Simonides in their unemotional character, so the later thrênos and élegos share a reflective, gnomic and consolatory tone. [12] There is therefore no need to postulate a complete change in the development of the élegos, only an extension of theme. Further, there is some evidence to suggest that elegiac poetry evolved and developed its particular functions and characteristics within the archaic institution of the common meal, known as syssítion or andreîon. Like the sk ólion (drinking song), the élegos was an after-supper song, but its purpose was to educate, exhort and inform, not merely to entertain, and hence the early extant élegoi, though not funereal, have a comparable seriousness of purpose. [13] Such an origin would explain both the peculiarity of the metre, which as a self-contained couplet was ideally suited to a song passed round the table from one improviser to another, and the sympotic, commemorative tone. If the ancients are right and the first élegoi were funereal, they may well have been improvised couplets commemorating a man, hero or event, and {104|105} hence easily adapted to incorporate wider political and social themes. Finally, if they were originally performed at the common meal, they were restricted to the men, and praise was therefore more appropriate than lamentation, which was traditionally left to the women. [14]

This hypothesis receives some support from our knowledge that it was an ancient ritual custom to praise the dead at the funeral feast, a practice described by the phrase ἐπιδέξια λέγειν … ὡσπερεὶ τεθνηκότι (to speak cleverly, as of the dead), implying some kind of witty improvisation (Anaxandrides fr. 1, Edmonds FAC 2.44). [15] Secondly, there is the famous fifth-century Attic skólion addressed to Harmodios. It is not in elegiacs, though some skólia were; but it is an excellent illustration of how a song may be sympotic, with a political theme, and at the same time an address to the dead:

The epigram was a dedicatory inscription written on tombstones or on votive offerings. Since it presupposes literacy, it cannot have been widely current before the end of the seventh century, but similarities of style and metre point to its relation to the élegos. Elegiac inscriptions begin at the end of the seventh century and continue throughout antiquity. The tone of the archaic examples is detached and impersonal, almost serene, and in no sense like a lament. Their purpose was purely functional, to mark a grave, as is shown by the following inscription from Attica (sixth century):

With the development of the literary epigram which began with Simonides, a more personal note appears, although conciseness was {105|106} still the rule. Gradually epigrams were written on themes other than the commemoration of the dead, and their composition became the elegant parergon of many fifth- and fourth-century writers. The same relaxation of restraint is perceptible in the non-literary funerary inscriptions of the late fifth century and after, perhaps as a result of the changes in ritual and lamentation already discussed at the end of chapter 1. The growing importance of the scene at the tomb, illustrated by its prominence on later fifth-century Attic vase-paintings, is also reflected in the elaboration and popularisation of the funerary inscription. The disintegration of archaic ritual forms like the thrênos and góos may have created a demand for the expression of a more intimate contact between mourner and dead than was possible in the formal and rhetorical epitáphios lógos. Dialogues, reproaches, sentiments of grief, begin to replace mere statements of death, as can be seen in the following inscriptions, the first from Halikarnassos (fourth century B.C.), the second an extract from a long inscription from Kotiaion (fourth century A.D.): These inscriptions are an invaluable source of evidence for the present study, since they are probably the closest reflection of popular language, style and thought in antiquity that we possess, although we cannot be sure of the exact manner of their composition. The vast majority are anonymous, written for a wide range of people from differing social classes from the whole of the Greek-speaking world. The large number of common ideas and formulae, many derived from classical literature, others found also in the epigrams of the Anthology, points to a degree of standardisation. It has even been argued that the stone-cutters used manuals of stock formulae from which the bereaved might choose their themes, and that the inscriptions are therefore minimally creative. [16] But in the absence of any specific evidence for the use of such manuals in Greek, it would surely be a mistake to dismiss them as entirely derivative: within the bounds of the convention, ideas, language and style vary considerably according to the time and place of composition, and according to the status of the deceased. The inscriptions afford us a unique insight into a complete cross-section of society; and it is frequently the more humble, semi-literate examples which offer the most valuable evidence. Finally, the striking similarities of formulae and style in these inscriptions and some of the modern moirológia, discussed in Part III, may throw some light not only on the origins of the modern laments, but also on the traditional nature of the inscriptions themselves.

Both the epitáphios lógos (funeral oration) and the epikédeion have their origins in the literary rather than the popular tradition of the classical period. The epitáphios lógos was the spoken oration delivered at the funeral in praise and commemoration of the dead. [17] With the rise of rhetoric, it tended to replace the earlier poetic forms, at least in the more developed urban society of Athens. Both composition and delivery belonged to the men. In the post-classical period, epitáphios was extended to refer to a poetic lament. The epikédeion presents rather more problems. In Homer, kêdos is used only for the practice of mourning, while Pindar uses it for the actual lament (Il. 4.270, 5.156, Pi. P. 4.112). Its adjectival form epikédeios is used with odé by Euripides for the Muse's lament for Troy, and by Plato in the strictly ritual sense the funeral songs of the Carian women (E. Tr. 511, Pl. Lg. 800e). [18] The substantival form epikédeion gained wide currency towards the end {107|108} of antiquity, and is defined somewhat tortuously by Alexandrian and Roman scholars as a kind of elegy, epigram and thrênos, containing a moderate expression of grief and considerable praise, not circumscribed in time or place, and public rather than private in character. [19] Its history indicates that it was a later literary development, not an archaic ritual lament, differing from the epitáphios lógos in that it was written in verse, not prose, from the thrênos in that it contained praise rather than lamentation, and from the élegos and epigram in that it was concerned with public events rather than with ordinary individuals.

The main distinctions between the two categories so far examined appear to be that while the thrênos, góos and kommós were based on a ritual act or cry of lamentation, performed by the women often to a musical accompaniment, the epigram, élegos, epitáphios lógos and epikédeion grew out of the social and literary activity of the men, developing the elements of commemoration and praise, which had been present in the archaic thrênos. This second group tended gradually to replace the first recognised form of honouring the dead; and at the same time the changing emphasis from lamentation at the wake to lamentation at the tomb weakened still further the older distinctions within the first group. The archaic terms ceased to correspond to ritual custom or to official practice. And since lyrical laments flourished chiefly in poetry, it was natural for later poets to exploit the rich inheritance of terms for poetic variety—a tendency which is incipient in tragedy and which reaches its peak in the Hellenistic period, thereby precipitating a total confusion of usage in the ancient terminology.

Since the old terms were dependent for survival on written tradition alone after the end of antiquity, when the literary composition of ancient forms was purely derivative and imitative, they were bound to disappear from the spoken language of the people. A few have lived on in modified and restricted form. Today, the Epitáphios Thrênos denotes the Holy Week lament for Christ, an important part of the ritual of the Orthodox Church. An exceptional survival of thrênos and kommós was found in the annual lament for Zafeiris, deeply rooted in seasonal ritual of pagan character. Góos has been forgotten, but its Homeric equivalents stenagmós and odyrmós are still common in the spoken language and in the folk laments, although they refer to act of weeping rather than to the lament itself. {108|109}

Did the disintegration of ancient terminology necessarily entail a disappearance of the old ritual forms of lament among the people? The question is impossible to answer without much more evidence or popular tradition in antiquity than we possess. But there are a number of modern Greek terms associated with lamentation of sufficient antiquity to indicate some interesting connections. One of these is the use in Cypriot dialect of the verb ἀνακαλιέμαι (to call upon). In ancient Greek, the verb ἀνακαλεῖσθαι is used of the persistent calling of the dead by name during the supplication at the tomb, usually accompanied by offerings and libations. Its function was to raise the spirit of the dead from the grave. It is used in this specific sense by Aeschylus for the invocation of Dareios’ spirit in the Persians, by Euripides, and also in one of the later epigrams: [20] But it was not restricted to literature. The verb ἀνακαλεῖν, as we have seen in chapter 4, was commonly used for the refrain invoking the dying god by name to rise again, an indispensable element of the ancient lament for gods. Its importance may be judged by the use of the cognate forms ἀνακλήθρα and ἀνακληθρίς for the stone on which Demeter is said to have sat when she invoked Persephone. The ritual enactment of this anáklesis was continued by the women of Megara until Pausanias’ day. [21] The verb form is used for the Virgin’s invocation to the dying Christ, and the noun form anakálema later denotes the lament for the fall of Constantinople. [22]

The proper function of the ancient term was to invoke the dead to rise again. As such it was rooted in popular ritual of a primitive kind. This ancient function is illustrated nowhere outside tragedy so clearly as in modern Cypriot popular usage, where besides the verb ἀνακαλιέμαι it was developed various new noun forms, all used of a particularly insistent type of dirge. As one women put it, Ἐκείνη ἡ ᾽ρκὰ {109|110} (γριὰ) ποὺ ἔθαψεν προχτὲς τὸν γιό της οὕλ᾽ ἡμέρα ἀνακαλιέται (‘That old woman who buried her son the other day invokes all day long,’ Sakellarios 2.446). An even closer parallel is provided by the Cypriot version of the folk ballad, The Song of the Dead Brother, where the deserted mother raises her dead son Kostandis from the grave with her invocations, weeping first for all her son: [23]

The use of ἀνακαλιέμαι is therefore a striking example of continuity in a specific type of lament, the ritual invocation of the dead at the tomb. It begins to appear in fifth-century literature, just when vase-paintings and funeral inscriptions point to the growing importance of lamentation at the tomb. Its popular character is further confirmed by its survival today, not in the religious tradition, where its meaning is less specific, and not at all in learned tradition, but in popular speech and in folk song. It suggests that ancient terminology was preserved most strongly when associated with ritual practice.

A solution to the problems of the etymology of moirológi, the general word today for the lament for the dead, would afford concrete information about the origins of the modern popular lament, and at the same time provide linguistic confirmation of the continuity already indicated by so many survivals of ritual and ideas. Two points may be made at once: first, both elements, moiro- and –lógi, are of ancient origin; second, the word belongs to demotic. In the learned and religious language, thr ê nos is used. The word is ancient, but popular.

Taking the first element of the word first, the problem is whether it is derived from the noun moîra (fate), or from the verb mýromai (to lament), or even from the adjectival prefix myrio- (ten-thousand-fold), as it is pronounced in many regions today. The question is not new. Nearly two hundred years ago, the philologist Adamantios Korais (1748-1833), basing himself on a passage of Hesychios, argued in favour of its derivation from mýromai, spelling the word myrológi (Atakta 2.225). More recently, a detailed linguistic analysis by John Schmitt has demonstrated the correctness of its derivation from moîra. [24] His arguments, entirely convincing from a formal point of {110|111} view, may perhaps be supplemented by a study of general usage, particularly in the Hellenistic and Greco-Roman periods.

Confusion between the prefixes moiro-, myrio-, myro- (from m ý ron = unguent, scent) and m ý romai is common. It goes back to Firmicus and Hesychios in the learned tradition, and to one of the scholiasts on Homer. [25] In the popular inscriptions, where the spelling is less correct and hence a closer reflection of actual pronunciation, oi and u are confused earlier and more frequently. In an inscription from Ankyra, Moira is misspelt as Myra (SEG 6.46.4). The root of the problem lies in the confusion of homophones caused by the changes of pronunciation in the Greek language, particularly in the process known as iotacism, the fronting-raising-closing of the vowels. The diphthong oi was beginning to lose its original value and to become assimilated with u as early as the third century B.C. [26] Since confusion between the two began before the first known occurrence of our word, nothing conclusive can be argued from the spelling of the written evidence. The only sound basis for discussion is a linguistic analysis of compound word formation, sense and usage.

Korais’ sole support for his derivation from m ý romai is Hesychios entry 1883: μυρᾳδεῖ· θρηνῳδεῖ which he connects with the separately entered μυρομένη· ὀδυρομένη. From this, he argues the existence of a verb μυρῳδεῖν (to lament). But there are several difficulties. First, μυρᾳδεῖ cannot stand. Nor is emendation to μυρῳδεῖ entirely convincing, because the a is protected by the word order of the Lexicon and hard to dismiss as a mere slip. Other attempts at emendation are even less acceptable (see 1883 app. crit.). Such a dubious text cannot be used to prove the existence of μυρῳδεῖν. But even if it were accepted, it does not take us far, since Hesychios enters μυρᾳδεῖ separately from μυρομένη, so that in view of the frequent confusion of spelling, from which the text of Hesychios is by no means immune, it would be impossible to determine whether the true form was μυρῳδεῖν or μοιρῳδεῖν.

Against Korais' interpretation, Schmitt has pointed out that the verb μυρῳδεῖν presupposes a noun μυρῳδία. There is no ancient evidence for such a word, and it is unlikely to have arisen in the Byzantine period for the simple reason that μυρωδία, from μυρώδης, was already current in the language with the meaning anointing, fragrance, or smell. Since Greek has shown throughout its history a tendency to avoid homophones, it is a priori improbable that a new word μυρῳδία or μοιρῳδία should have become current at a time when confusion had already set in. [27] {111|112}

Schmitt demonstrated also that a compound form μυρῳδία or μυρολόγι could only be formed from a noun form mȳ́ron = lament, not from the verb mȳ́romai, and that there is no certain evidence for such a noun in ancient or Byzantine sources. The case may be put more strongly: first, compounds ending in -odía, -lógion, -logé, -logía are all formed with substantival, adjectival or prepositional prefixes, never with verbal prefixes; second, throughout the history of the Greek language, mýromai has produced no other compound form, whereas compounds with my̆ro- (= smell), myrio- and moiro- have been common since antiquity, and are still being formed today.

Decisive evidence in favour of derivation from moîra comes from a passage in the Life of Alexander, attributed to Pseudo-Kallisthenes (c. 300 B.C.), although none of the versions which have come down to us is earlier than A.D. 300. Alexander taunts the astrologer-prophet Nektanebos for aspiring to interpret the stars when he does not even know how he will meet his death. Nektanebos replies that he already knows that he will be killed by his own son. Attempting to prove him wrong, Alexander strikes him to the ground, mortally wounding him. Nektanebos then reveals that he, and not Philip, is Alexander’s true father, and that the fate which he had prophesied for himself is now fulfilled: Φοβερῶς εἴληφα τὸ πρᾶγμα ἀλλ᾽ οὐκ ἔστιν οὐδένα θνητὸν νικῆσαι τὴν εἰμαρμένην … ὡς γὰρ ἐμοιρολόγησα ἐμαυτόν, ηὗρον εἱμαρμένον μοι ὑπὸ ἰδίου τέκνον ἀναιρεθῆναι οὐκ ἐξέφυγον οὖν τὴν μοῖραν, ἀλλ᾽ ὑπὸ σοῦ ἀνῃρέθην. V. Alex. 1.14 (ed. Kroll). The word moirolog ô means here, ‘I prophesy my own fate, tell my own doom’. The prefix moiro- is protected not by the spelling, but by the meaning. Is there any evidence to suggest that the idea had any connection with lamentation?

In Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, Cassandra, as a prophetess, knew the fate in store for her before she entered the fatal palace. As she waited to go in, she cried out against her ill-starred fortune, lamented her own moîra, then, calling on the sun to help avenge her death, she sang her own dirge, extended at the end into a general lament for the tragedy of human life: It is true that Cassandra’s position was a peculiar one; but her protest against fate and farewell to life, both essential parts of her lament for herself, are themes which constantly recur in tragedy. Further, the lament of the tragic hero or heroine for his own fate or death accounts for a high proportion of the laments in Greek tragedy. Other tragic figures who sing their own dirges include the Suppliant Women in Aeschylus, Ajax, Jokasta, Oedipus, Antigone, Deianeira and Philoktetes in Sophokles, and Alkestis, Hekabe, Polyxena, Medea, Phaidra, Andromache and Iphigeneia in Euripides. Their laments contain a striking number of common formulae and themes; and in all, moîra and týche are of the utmost importance. [29] This suggests a basis in popular belief outside the confines of tragic drama.

In Homer, moîra is frequently found in formulaic phrases as the agent of death or bringer of doom. [30] Equally common is the hero’s protest to the gods at a reversal of fortune, and farewell to life when on the point of death. [31] In Homer, moîra is restricted in sense, but always personified in concrete form; while in tragedy, although moîra and týche are more frequently appealed to than in Homer, their personality and function are less clearly delineated. It is in the popular funerary inscriptions that moîra retains both her wide range functions and her well-defined personality. [32] But the fundamental idea in all is the inescapability of a man's allotted fate. It is traditional to much of Greek poetry and thought, and has given rise to common fund of formulae and formulaic phrases which can be traced in Homer, lyric poetry, drama, verse and prose inscriptions. [33] It is also implicit in the passage from the Life of Alexander, where the verb moirologô first occurs. {113|114}

The idea of the inevitability of man’s fate finds particularly varied expression in the funerary inscriptions. A detailed investigation by Mayer has yielded no fewer than 230 different formulae used with moîra, selected from only the more striking examples. In the dedicatory and consolatory inscriptions, on the other hand, only six could be found. Of these formulae, forty are used of moîra in the impersonal sense of a man’s allotted part, either in life or death, while the rest describe the goddess Moîra, usually as she brings death, as in Homer. [34] The formulae, stock epithets and verbs which are appropriate to this destructive moîra are sometimes Homeric; but this does not mean that they can be dismissed as literary borrowings, rather that the Homeric formulae continued to express popular feeling and belief. [35] These traditional attitudes explain why Moîra is directly addressed an reproached in so many of the inscriptions, as in an inscription from Ilion in the first to second centuries A.D., ὢ Μοίρης πικρὰ λογιζομένης ... (O Moîra, who calculates bitter things!) (Peek 1350.16). [36] The mourner first reproached Moîra for having caused the death of a loved one, then lamented his own moîra, deserted and grieved. Moirologô would be exactly appropriate to such a practice. Even if the word is a hapax legomenon in ancient Greek, it is rooted in ancient traditional beliefs. Finally, the evidence of the funerary inscriptions suggests that the protest to fate or lament for oneself, elaborated in drama to the highest point of tragic art, continued to flourish in popular tradition. [37]

It is over a thousand years before our word reappears, this time in the noun from moirológema, but the main steps of its transmission are clear. In the Greek novels of love and adventure, where Fortune's cunning tricks and reverses lead to innumerable escapes and imagined deaths, ample opportunity is provided for heroes and heroines to indulge in lamentations and protests to Fate. [38] In The Fall of Troy, Quintus of Smyrna (third century A.D.) takes up the story of the Trojan War where Homer left off, and relates in each of the fourteen books the terrible fate which befell one hero after another. Much of the epic is composed of lamentation and accounts of funerals, and in every lament the idea of Fate in connection with death is emphasized. [39] Then, in the Byzantine prose and verse romances of the twelfth century, which constitute to some extent a learned revival of the earlier Greek novel, Fate has taken over many of the functions of the ancient Olympians, and plays a dominant role. Some of the phrases in which she is reproached incorporate formulaic expressions from the funerary inscription. [40] That the importance of Fate and Fortune was not {114|115} merely a learned extension of earlier usage, but also owed much to the popular tradition of the Byzantine period, becomes clear with the emergence of the anonymous romances in politikòs stíchos and popular language in the fourteenth century and after. In Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoe, for example, Týche appears, just as she does in the modern folk tales, in the guise of a woman dressed in black (1329-46). Besides the idea of the woven thread of Fate the Spinner, we find the decree of Fate, written down by Moîra herself at the birth of a child, and closely linked with the child's prospective marriage—a theme central to the stories of Belthandros and Chrysantza and Lybistros and Rhodamne, where it gives rise to many new epithets, verbs and compounds. [41]

It is in this wider literary context that the occurrence of the word moirológema in Kallimachos and Chrysorrhoe should be viewed. Chrysorrhoe, having been rescued from the Castle of the Drakos by Kallimachos, is snatched away from him to become wife of a king. While the king is away on campaigns, Kallimachos finds his way to the royal palace and takes on work as a gardener's boy in order to be near his loved one. As he toils and sweats, he curses Fate: [42] The connection here between lamentation and Fate could not be more plain. Its popular character is further demonstrated by similar reproaches in the modern folk laments: [43] {115|116}

In modern folk tradition, moirológi is not the lament for oneself or protest to fate sung at any angry moment; it is specifically the ritual lament, sung usually at death, and avoided on other occasions as ill-omened. Far from being a recent development, the reason lies partly in the survival today of many of the oldest and most fundamental associations of moîra. [44] In the Byzantine romances, Moîra, together with Éros, recorded in a book at a man's birth the decree which was to decide his future love—a relatively late and literary conception. But in folk tradition, the three Moîres decide above all the time and manner of a man’s death. Nor do they always record their decree in a book; their use of spindle, distaff and scissors is reflected in many proverbs, sayings and paradóseis, while the grapsímata are not letters written with pen and ink, but marks left by the Moîres on the face in infancy. [45] As recently as 1966, Photeine Papageorgiou, aged 77, from Berko in Naupaktos, recalled how she used to lay out the bones of the dead in the churchyard together with other women, as was the custom, and on examining the unusual ραφές (seams) on the forehead of the skull, they would murmur to each other, Νά, ἐδῶ τὰ ἔγραφε ἡ Μοῖρα του! (‘Look, this is where Moira wrote his fate!’). This fusion of writing and weaving is used of the Moîrai as early as the Greco-Roman period, again, significantly, in the inscriptions: Μοῖραι … ἐκλώσαντο … γραψάμεναι … (The Fates, having written … wove) (Peek 1029.3-4). [46]

The linguistic and historical evidence, then, leaves no doubt that moîra and not mýromai is the correct origin of moirológi. The transmission of the role of Fate in lamentation has been traced from antiquity to the present through the inscriptions and the novel to the learned and popular Byzantine romance; and modern folk tradition also shows signs of independent ancient survivals. But perhaps the formal aspect should not be overemphasised. In words of popular origin and transmission, confusion by analogy is common; and once mýromai and moîra, closely associated in meaning, had become homophones, identification was natural. The most likely explanation is that the phrases moîran légo, or moîran katalégo, current in the language since Homer, acquired a new significance with the development of Moîra as a figure instrumental in bringing a man’s death, and of the tragic song to fate {116|117} or lament for oneself, hence forming a compound moirologéo just as mythologéo was formed from mýthon légo. [47] This coincided with the phonetic changes in the language, and the consequent confusion between mýromai and moîra may have affected the final transference of meaning from song to fate to lament.

It is difficult to date this process precisely. Mýromai is frequent in Homer in the sense of weeping the dead; it occurs once in Hesiod, though the form is possibly corrupt; then there is a gap until the Alexandrians, who use it again exclusively for weeping the dead, and the funerary inscriptions. [48] It appears to have been a dialect word, present in epic but not in Attic, and not used in poetry after Homer and Hesiod until the Hellenistic age. The suspicion that it ceased to be widely used after the introduction of the koiné is confirmed by the treatment of the Lexica, where it is always glossed with the commoner κλαίειν and θρηνεῖν but never used as a gloss itself. [49] This would place mýromai, if it is the cause of the confusion, somewhere in the early Hellenistic period, and hence the emergence of some form of moirologô in its present sense from the third to first centuries B.C.

One more problem remains. Attention has so far been directed only to moiro-; but the ending -lógi presents some difficulties. Is it a popular form of -lógion, and if so, can it bear the meaning of song, word, as is usually assumed? While compounds in -logô, -logía, -lógos and -lógema are all classical, the neuter form -lógion first appears in Hellenistic Greek. Its compounds, when formed with substantival prefixes, give the meaning collection of or instrument for. Further, most nouns in -lógion are technical or literary terms, not popular words.

The first known noun form for our word is moirológema. The ending -lógi, which is current from the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries, is inconsistent with other Hellenistic and Byzantine nouns of its type in the following respects: first, the word is exclusively demotic, while other nouns in –lógion are learned; second, on the analogy of other nouns it ought to mean collection of fates, or instrument for fates; third, other modern Greek compounds in -logô give noun forms in -lógema if the sense is concrete, in -logía if abstract, while nouns in -lógi rarely have verb forms at all. Some of these discrepancies may be explained on the analogy of katalógi, as it evolved in Byzantine and modern Greek. [50] In the popular language of the romances, it could mean love song, message, enkómion, as well as story or song; while in the dialect of Lesbos today, katalóg' signifies the epitáphios thrênos, and both katalogiázo and katalogístra are used interchangeably with moirologô an moirologístria. [51] {117|118}

It is therefore probable that the Byzantine popular form katalógi, derived from ancient katalogé and not from katalógion, had some influence on the final form of moirológi, especially as one of its meanings was the same. Analogous to the development katalégo > katalogé > katalógema > katalógi, moirológi probably arose from moirologô > moirológema, and not from moirológion at all. It was a general tendency of medieval Greek for certain feminine nouns to become neuter, throwing into temporary confusion those of the neuter endings which were phonetically indistinguishable. [52] Since the ending -lógi in our word did not become stabilised until late Byzantine Greek, when neuter endings were in a transitional stage, the rules of noun formation which govern Hellenistic and learned Byzantine compounds in -lógion and their modern derivatives in -lógi are not applicable. Finally, related to katalógi is another modern word, paralogé (ballad), from ancient Greek parakatalogé, deriving, like katalógi, from the epic recitation peculiar to Ionian tradition. [53]

These considerations give some support to the historical and linguistic analysis of both elements of moirológi in pointing to the ultimate origins of the modern word in the Hellenistic age. Moirológi can, with some confidence, be added to the modern types of folk song analysed by Kyriakidis, which are rooted in the language and traditions of late antiquity. [54] Can this continuity be further supported by its form and content?

Although moirológi is a general term, there are several recognised distinctions. [55] How far can they be related to the ancient types of laments and songs to the dead discussed at the beginning of this chapter? Not all moirológia are intended for the dead, although they have a strong ritual character. Among these are the laments for those who have left their country, for change of religion, and for marriage.

Classical literature appears to have developed only the lament for those who died away from home. But in Homer, there is evidence of another kind, spoken for or by a man leaving home or known to be in distant parts. Hearing of Telemachos’ departure, Penelope sits on the threshold—a ritual position—and weeps, with all her maidservants around her. [56] Perhaps because these laments are not connected with any official ritual, they are rarely mentioned in historical or literary sources. Our next sample is a tender farewell to home written in iambic trimeters by the Byzantine poet Ioannes Mauropous (eleventh {118|119} century), which contains certain formulae similar to those found both in antiquity and in modern folk tradition. [57] That there may have been a well established medieval popular basis for these laments is suggested both by their occurrence in the romances, and by the number found in medieval manuscripts, written probably by monks of limited learning in idle and nostalgic mood to fill up empty spaces. They are not fine poetry, but their popularity is evident from the use of common formulae, some of which can be related, like Mauropous’ lament, to both ancient and modern laments. [58]

Until recently, laments for those who leave their country formed an important and distinctive group, especially in Epiros, where emigration had been a part of the life of the people for many generations. They usually take the form of an address by the bereaved family to the absent person, or to Xenitiá (distant parts), who is personified. Occasionally there is a dialogue between them in which the washing of the travel-stained handkerchief is made into a striking poetic symbol of the bond with home. [59] Their mood is one of harsh complaint, their melody and style strident and undecorated, like the following example I recorded in 1963 from Alexandra Tsipi, an Epirot girl now living in Larisa: One reason for the peculiar intensity of these laments is the fear of death in foreign lands, which is also known to have existed in antiquity: [60]

The laments for change of religion appear to have arisen in modern Greek tradition out of the custom of paidomázoma, common in the {119|120} post-Byzantine period, according to which children were seized to be trained as janissaries in the Turkish army. Little recorded in contemporary sources, some elements of these laments have survived in oral tradition. Although related to the historical laments for cities, they are not exclusively historical: to the mother who saw her son taken from home and forced to turn Moslem, with no prospect of return except as an enemy soldier, the only course was to lament him as dead. The ritual element is again expressed by the use of formulae common to laments for the dead and for those who have left their country. [61] One may also compare the folk song about the Jewish girl who is wooed by a Christian and asked to change her religion, but is told by her mother that she would rather her daughter die than do such a thing (Passow 589).

Closest to the laments for the dead in structure and form are those sung for the bride as she leaves her father's house. The similarities are due not to lack of originality, but to the sustained parallel in the ritual of the two ceremonies of wedding and funeral: the solemn ablutions of bride and bridegroom, the anointing with nuptial oils and perfumes, the elaborate dressing, the wearing of the marriage garland and the use of torches—all can be matched remarkably closely in the ritual preparation of the dead as he was about to depart on his last journey. [62] Further, a deliberate fusion is indicated by the custom, ancient as well as modern, of dressing those who died young in wedding attire. [63] Popular belief viewed death and marriage as fundamentally similar occasions, signalling the transition from one stage in the cycle of human existence to another. The bride leaves home to start a new life, and as she steps over the threshold for the last time as a girl, her family take leave of her as they do for the dead, while she replies with complaints similar to those made by the dead in the laments. The structural and formulaic correspondences between the wedding and funeral laments may be illustrated by two examples, the first a funeral lament from Olympia, the second a wedding lament from Crete. In both the sense of bereavement is intensified by an allusion in the first line to the lament of the Virgin:

As the bride makes her ritual farewells, her mother breaks down, calling out, as if at a funeral, ‘You are leaving—my eyes have gone, my comfort has gone, the keys of my breast and the pillar of my heart has gone!’ (Vlastos 51). When the priest arrives, it is the bride’s turn to lament and hang back. Sometimes she requires force: Or at the last moment she begs her mother to hide her. This resistance, suggesting, beneath the convention, her real fear of leaving girlhood, brings her mother to her senses: Similarly, in a funeral lament from Tsakonia, the dying girl sees Charos approach, and begs her mother to hide her in a cage, in a chest, among the basil and balsam plants; but her mother replies sternly that he will not, that she gives her over to Charos (Laog (1923) 40). The allusive quality of these songs, where the imagery of the funeral laments, especially for those who died young, is imbued with the imagery of the wedding songs, may owe something to the antiquity in Greek tradition of the theme of death as marriage, which can be richly illustrated from tragedy, from the epigrams of the Anthology, from rhetorical and narrative works, and, most abundantly, from the funerary inscriptions. [65]

All three types of lament, for departure from home, for change of religion and for marriage, are deeply rooted in ritual beliefs. They are interesting not only in themselves, but also for the range and depth of poetic response which they have inspired in the whole tradition of funeral lamentation.

Let us turn now to the different types of moirológia for the dead, since it is here that the closest parallels to ancient forms are to be found. First, there are the laments sung by women at the laying-out and at the tomb. At the laying-out, both kinswomen and strangers, but more especially the latter, concentrate on praising the dead in a series of formal and well-ordered verses in the third person, drawing from a common fund of conventional topoi: [66] In Mani, the mourner may begin with a stereotyped, proverbial opening in fifteen-syllable verse, and continue with a direct address, improvised in eight-syllable rhyming couplets: The improvisations at the laying-out are usually long, lyrical reproaches from the next of kin, which follow a traditional pattern according to the person addressed, whether a mother, father, husband, brother or child (Laog (1960) 366-74, 379). Sophia Lala of Samarina, well known as an expert mourner, complained to me in 1966 that many women did not bother to observe the correct distinctions in their laments, and would sing the first thing that would come into their heads, whereas if she was invited to lament at a funeral, she would always think carefully before she started what type of lament was proper to the occasion. In Mani, where the custom of lamentation is particularly vigorous, the mourner introduces into her improvisation many specific details from the past: in a lament for a young girl who died of leukaemia after graduating in Greek literature, her aunt recounts to her in detail how many doctors were consulted, and how many friends came to give blood, in a vain attempt to save her life (Laog (1960) 396.3, 5-10).

When the body is raised for the funeral procession, the dialogue form again predominates, as one of the mourners sings the dead man’s last farewell to his house and family. Sometimes a more macabre note is introduced, and he takes leave not only of the four {123|124} walls of his house but also of his good looks, instructing in turn his hair, eyes, hands and feet to prepare themselves to enter the black earth (Laog (1929) 26.85,1-2). [67] This, and the moment of burial, call for passionate lamentation from the next of kin, who weep and cry out on the dead not to leave them:

But not all laments at the tomb are passionate reproaches and addresses to the dead by name, or long dialogues. In some of the Cypriot anakalémata, and above all in the couplets from Karpathos, terse and detached distichs are improvised, similar in style and content to the ancient inscriptions. Sometimes it is the dead man who speaks, informing the world of the manner of his death: Young Stasia, three months buried, begs Charos to let her join her brothers, who have just come home from abroad, but Charos replies sternly that she will see them only when they come to light candles on her grave (ibid. 188.9). A Cypriot mother accuses Charos in a formula to that of the ancient inscriptions: [68]

The function of the ritual lamentation of the women is the same as in antiquity. It soothed wrath in cases of cruel or untimely death; or, alternatively, like the góos éndikos (just lament) of Orestes and Elektra, it roused the spirit of revenge (A. Ch. 327-31). This is the purpose of {124|125} the long, narrative vendetta ballads from Mani: in one, entitled The Blood, a mother relates how, one Easter morning, she prepares for the revenge of her husband's murder eighteen years before. Returning from church, she lays an extra place at the Easter meal, telling her five children that it is for their father, and instructing them to avenge his death by seeking out the enemy clan and making sure to kill the leader that very Easter Day, or else her black curse will pursue them everywhere. They ask her solemn blessing, which is given over the ritual tasting of the lamb, and then go out. Greeting their return at evening when the deed is done, she acclaims them as worthy at last, and gives thanks to Fortune (Pasayanis 146).

Such might be the motive. But there is a more subjective aspect: grief, finding expression, is relieved and lightened, hence the ritual lament is just as necessary for the mourner as it is for the dead. This idea was almost proverbial in antiquity; as the chorus of Trojan women say to Hekabe: [69] It is echoed in many laments today. A Maniot woman sings:

The second group of moirológia belongs neither exclusively to the women nor to funeral ritual, but to the epitrapézia tragoúdia (songs of the table). The institution of the common meal restricted to male members of the community has long disappeared; but large gatherings of family and friends persist, especially at festive meals, and with them the practice of after-supper songs. The range of theme is wide, and the length varies from improvised and competitive couplets to longer narrative ballads. [70] Some are concerned with or addressed to the dead, but they are not laments. A large number of the so-called moirológia of {125|126} the Underworld and Charos betray connections with songs of the Akritic cycle, especially with the theme of the death of Digenis and his struggle with Charos; others appear to be fragments of longer ballads, ending before the story is complete. One may observe here a tendency for the longer, narrative poems to break up into shorter and more lyrical pieces, and for parts to become absorbed into the women’s ritual laments. [71]

Another important type in this group is predominantly historical. Like their ancient counterparts, these songs were concerned less with lamentation for the dead than with praise of a hero. Their function was not ritual, but educative, to inspire the present generation to the same heroic feats as the last. Many of the historical and Kleftic songs fall into this category, some being specifically addressed by the old men to the young, bequeathing to them their skill and experience in battle, others recounting exploits and heroic deaths ‘while we eat and drink’. [72] Once more, some distinctive songs for heroes come from Mani. During the Balkan Wars of 1912-13, news reached Pachianika near Mount Tainaron that the soldier Dimitrios Livanas had been killed in battle. It was Christmas Day, and all gathered in his family's house to honour his memory. First to speak was a woman from a neighboring village whose son had also been killed in battle: beginning with the Balkan Entente, and Venizelos' decision to fight the Turks, she recalls how, when their sons were called up, all the women sent them off with exhortations ‘to slay the Turk, and if they do not defeat him, not to come home again’. She asserts that it is an insult to the dead to weep, commenting that the ancient Spartans likewise refused to lament those slain in battle. In conclusion, she tells Livanas’ relatives not to make cowards of their son by singing dirges, but to pray instead to the Virgin to keep a watchful eye on Venizelos, now in London, lest he be deceived by ‘the strong and … unjust powers’. She is answered by the dead man’s nurse, who claims that neither the Spartans nor the Mavromichalaioi were ashamed to lament, but agrees that it is not fitting at present: ‘You men, who have weapons, leave for Iannina! Help our children to defeat the Turk!’ (Laog (1912-13) 3-11). [73] This is not a lament, but a passionate discussion on patriotic themes, interspersed with political commentary on current affairs. At the same time, it is a solemn tribute to the dead.

Finally, there are the gnomikà moirol ógia (gnomic laments), comparable to the ballads of the Underworld and to the songs for heroes in that they are not necessarily mournful, but different in both form and content. They are mostly distichs, and express with the utmost {126|127} conciseness some consolatory and proverbial wisdom about life and death, as though the imposition of order on irrational feelings can effect some control over the disturbing and incomprehensible process of death. Most depend on the intricate elaboration of imagery by antithetical similes, which compare and contrast the world of nature with the world of man—a technique which permits the highest degree of explicit and implicit comment without referring to the actual fact of death. The following examples are taken from Karpathos and Aigina: [74]

The exact circumstances in which these gnomic laments are performed are hard to define; but they are appropriate to the all-night vigil over the dead during the wake, and to the funeral feast. Many of the more formal ritual laments of the women sung at the wake also open proverbially: Finally, one of the laments I recorded in 1963 from the village of Rhodia in Thessaly, sung by a group of men in chorus to the slow, monotonous and mournful tune characteristic of the Thessalian plain, approaches the spirit of some of the ancient elegiacs. [75] As the words indicate, it is appropriate to a gathering of men:

This brief classification of modern moirológia suggests that while the ancient terms have disappeared, a high proportion of similar features have survived in each type. Among the women’s ritual laments, the gnomic, consolatory and laudatory tone balances the passionate, informal addresses at the laying-out; while at the tomb, terse distichs are performed as well as long and sometimes inflammatory dialogues. At the same time, to praise and commemorate the dead there exists the tradition of men's heroic songs and ballads sung after meals to educate and inspire the younger generation. Belonging to the whole community are the gnomic distichs, similar to riddles and proverbs in form and content, which serve the vital social function of helping the bereaved adjust themselves to the world of the living. Finally, that this modern popular tradition of laments for men and songs to the dead has its roots in antiquity is supported by the history of its terminology. {128|129}