Priam’s Supplication, by Homer
Priam’s Supplication, by Homer
“μνῆσαι πατρὸς σοῖο θεοῖς ἐπιείκελ’ Ἀχιλλεῦ,
τηλίκου ὥς περ ἐγών, ὀλοῷ ἐπὶ γήραος οὐδῷ:
καὶ μέν που κεῖνον περιναιέται ἀμφὶς ἐόντες
τείρουσ’, οὐδέ τίς ἐστιν ἀρὴν καὶ λοιγὸν ἀμῦναι.
490ἀλλ’ ἤτοι κεῖνός γε σέθεν ζώοντος ἀκούων
χαίρει τ’ ἐν θυμῷ, ἐπί τ’ ἔλπεται ἤματα πάντα
ὄψεσθαι φίλον υἱὸν ἀπὸ Τροίηθεν ἰόντα:
αὐτὰρ ἐγὼ πανάποτμος, ἐπεὶ τέκον υἷας ἀρίστους
Τροίῃ ἐν εὐρείῃ, τῶν δ’ οὔ τινά φημι λελεῖφθαι.
495πεντήκοντά μοι ἦσαν ὅτ’ ἤλυθον υἷες Ἀχαιῶν:
ἐννεακαίδεκα μέν μοι ἰῆς ἐκ νηδύος ἦσαν,
τοὺς δ’ ἄλλους μοι ἔτικτον ἐνὶ μεγάροισι γυναῖκες.
τῶν μὲν πολλῶν θοῦρος Ἄρης ὑπὸ γούνατ’ ἔλυσεν:
ὃς δέ μοι οἶος ἔην, εἴρυτο δὲ ϝάστυUsually spelt ἄστυ (astu / ass-too), even in the earliest copies of the Iliad, the meter requires a consonant. Enter ‘ϝ’, the digamma, pronounced ‘w’. Greek lost this consonant very early on, but texts as old as the Iliad preserve its fossil. Other words include ‘wine’, οἷνος (oinos / oy-noss), which looks different to words for wine in most European languages. But it was originally ϝίνος (winos / we-noss)! καὶ αὐτούς,
500τὸν σὺ πρώην κτεῖνας ἀμυνόμενον περὶ πάτρης
Ἕκτορα: τοῦ νῦν εἵνεχ’ ἱκάνω νῆας Ἀχαιῶν
λυσόμενος παρὰ σεῖο, φέρω δ’ ἀπερείσι’ ἄποινα.
ἀλλ’ αἰδεῖο θεοὺς Ἀχιλεῦ, αὐτόν τ’ ἐλέησον
μνησάμενος σοῦ πατρός: ἐγὼ δ’ ἐλεεινότερός περ,
505ἔτλην δ’ οἷ’ οὔ πώ τις ἐπιχθόνιος βροτὸς ἄλλος,
ἀνδρὸς παιδοφόνοιο ποτὶ στόμα χεῖρ’ ὀρέγεσθαι.”
“Remember your father, godlike Achilles,
Of a similar age to myself, on the baneful threshold of old age.
Even for him I suppose those dwelling nearby give him
Grief, and there is no-one to fend off ruin and destruction.
490But surely even that man, when he hears that you are alive,
Rejoices in his heart and still hopes every day
To see his sweet son coming home from Troy.
But I am completely out of luck, since I sired the best of sons
In broad Troy, and – of them – I tell you not one is left.
495Fifty I had, when the Greek armiesThe Greek text here says ‘sons of the Achaeans’, which generally translates to the coalition of kingdoms from (modern) Greece who invaded Troy. Greek identity developed slowly over a long time after this. arrived:
Nineteen were born to me from the same womb,
And the women in my halls birthed the others.
Raging Ares cut the knees out from under many of them,
But he was unique to me, and he defended his city and its people,
500The man whom you recently slew as he defended his fatherland:
Hektor, on whose behalf I now come to the ships of the GreeksAs above – the Greek says ‘Achaeans’
To ransom him from you, and I bring a boundless ransom.
So respect the gods, Achilles, and take mercy on him,
Remembering your father – though I am unluckier still!
505I have suffered like no other mortal living on this earth:
To bring the hands of the man who killed my children to my lips.”
— Homer, Iliad Ω̅ (24) 496–506, trans. me
Quite a dramatic one today! This is one of the most evocative passages from the entire Iliad, in my opinion. This was one of my set texts about a decade ago, and for some reason it passed into long-term memory during revision. My most useless party trick is being able to recite the Greek from memory.
To set the scene: Priam sneaks into Achilles’ tent to beg him to return the body of Hektor (Priam’s favourite son). Achilles has killed Hektor in a blind rage and started desecrating his body in front of Troy, in retaliation for Hektor killing Achilles’ lover and companion, Patrokles.
This scene is so incredible in its cultural context because Priam far outranks Achilles and is by this point an old man, but he is willing to supplicate himself to Achilles to beg for the body’s return. Supplication is already a show of complete humility, in which the supplicant takes the supplicand’s knees with one arm, and reaches up with the other hand to touch their chin. Achilles’ tent is in shock at seeing Priam materialise in front of their leader – but then Priam, the king of Troy, prostrates himself before Achilles and takes his hands (rather than chin) to kiss them – the hands responsible for killing so many of his sons, let alone Hektor.
During the entire speech above, therefore, Priam is knelt before Achilles in a very close and intimate position, one arm wrapped around his knees and the other clasping his hands. Priam evokes Achilles’ love for his own father, Peleus, whom Priam imagines being surrounded by enemies and unable to defend Phthia without Achilles – much like Priam and Troy without Hektor. This is often called a new type of heroism, because Priam rises above the hatred and bloodshed of the war to put his own pride aside and beg Achilles to do the right, and honourable, thing.
There is much debate around Homer’s view on war, but scenes like this make me think the Iliad is very much anti-war. Yes, the violent deeds are glorified throughout, but that is aligned with the prevailing view of masculinity and honour of that society. Homer frequently emphasises the loss and grief caused by war, from giving each person who dies a name and family (previous epics from this region would just say, “so-and-so gloriously killed 37 men”, but Homer lists them all), to spending so much time on the aftermath of deaths: Achilles grieving Patrokles has a whole book, and time is given throughout to the Trojans bracing for Hektor’s loss, and then their grief when he dies. Even the fact that Trojans and Greeks in the Iliad speak the same language and have essentially identical cultures helps to portray the Trojans sympathetically. They aren’t shown as barbaric foreigners (as the Persian Empire is often portrayed in later Greek literature), but as equal sides in a terrible war. No one really wins – not even the Greeks.
Featured Image: This is a vase painting of Apollo and Artemis that I appropriated during me & Evie’s campaign to be Social Secretaries of the Classics Society during our final year of university.
TJC 
”fifty, I had [children]… nineteen from the same womb…” no mention of their poor mother and how she might be feeling having birthed that many, let alone lost them all!
A very dramatic passage and thanks for all the explanation!
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And that’s just the sons! Priam supposedly had 50 sons and 50 daughters… This is a good example of the misogyny prevalent in Priam’s (and Homer’s) culture. Hekabe, his wife, is a prominent character in the Trojan scenes of the Iliad – but here the poetic effect of “Fifty …/Nineteen …” is prioritised over naming her. I wanted to talk about this (cf. the fact that the many mothers of his other children are just called, “the women in my halls”), but if I picked out everything from this passage alone that I wanted to talk about it would have been an essay!
Women in Homeric society are often treated as commodities or possessions alongside material goods, and their agency is very often limited or overlooked. Even a character such as Helen of Troy (formerly Sparta): different myths can’t agree on whether she went with Paris willingly, or was abducted, as though this detail is of secondary importance. The Iliad itself is not even internally consistent on this point. Helen is a very interesting character in this regard because of the way she asserts, and reflects on, her agency (especially in Book 3).
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