penthos
idea · 2 works · 6 mentions · 10 anchored passages
grief · sorrow · distress · our sorrows
in the texts
Iliad
The Greek concept of grief or mourning, explicitly glossed as 'penthos' in two passages describing sorrow over the wounded and dead.
When noble Koön, Antenor's eldest son, saw this, the grief [ penthos] made his eyes sore at the sight of his fallen brother.
He recks not of the grief [ penthos] that reigns in our host;
- "Of a truth," he said, "a great sorrow [ penthos] has befallen the Achaean land.
Odyssey
Penthos, sorrow, names the grief Penelope attributes to Helen's transgression.
Heaven put it in her heart to do wrong, and she gave no thought to that transgression [ atê], which has been the source of all our sorrows [ penthos].
Sing the suitors some one of these, and let them drink their wine in silence, but cease this sad tale, for it breaks my sorrowful heart, and reminds me of my lost husband for whom I have grief [ penthos] ever without ceasing, and whose name [ kleos] was great over all Hellas and middle Argos.
I am in great distress [ penthos], yet it insists that I shall eat and drink, bids me lay aside all memory of my sorrows and dwell only on the due replenishing of itself.