The unusual lament for the loss of the daughter: Hecuba in Posthomerica XIV
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Abstract
Hecuba's lament in Book XIV (vv. 289-301) offers a deeply moving and meaningful conclusion to Posthomerica. In this γόος, Quintus of Smyrna condenses key themes of Greek epic: grief, loss, and the breakdown of human order in the face of the violence of war. Through the use of similes, mythical references and a rhetorically elaborate structure, the poet not only gives voice to female suffering, historically marginalized in the heroic discourse, but also resignifies the epic's closure. The death of Polyxena, the only daughter who receives a ritual lament in a poem saturated with male deaths, becomes a symbol of useless sacrifice, ritualized violence and the irreversible end of the city of Troy. The figure of Hecuba, whose metamorphosis seals her fate, concentrates mourning, impotence and the final transformation of the human into something else: a petrified memory that survives the fall of the civilization that engendered her.
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