Gelges laments her husband Cael, and in the Táin bó Cúailnge, where Cú
Chulainn produces a series of laments for his foster-brother Fer Diad, whom
he himself has killed in single combat.^105 In the Battle of the Goths and Huns
the victorious king Angantýr recites a lament for his fallen brother Hlo ̨ðr.^106
Lament for the dead may naturally be accompanied by consolation of the
bereaved. There is a particular consolatory technique that occurs in Greek,
Old English, and Norse poetry (though only in the last case actually in the
context of bereavement). It consists in the recital of other bad things that have
happened in the past to other people and that were overcome. The aim is to
persuade the one being consoled to put things in proportion. Dione uses the
technique in comforting Aphrodite over her maltreatment by Diomedes in
theIliad (5. 382–404): she rehearses a series of tales of gods who suffered at
the hands of mortals and yet endured. ‘Ares endured, when... And Hera
endured, when... And Hades endured, when.. .’ The Norse parallel comes
in the firstGuðrúnarkviða, 3–11, where Gudrun sits dumb with grief over
Sigurd’s body and other warriors’ wives come in turn and try to rouse her by
relating their own past woes. In the Old English Deor the exiled bard consoles
himself by recalling a series of five legendary tales of suffering, rounding off
each one with the refrain ‘That passed by: this may likewise’. This type of
consolation may go back to Indo-European tradition, particularly as the
technique of referring to a series of separate stories shows an affinity with the
practice of listing a god’s or hero’s major exploits.
Narrative poetryWe have noted that hymnic and praise poetry both have a natural tendency
towards narrative, towards telling of the accomplishments of the deity or of
the mortal patron and his forebears. The Indo-European chieftain, as will
appear more fully in Chapter 10, did not simply want to be flattered with
praise of his good qualities: he wanted to be famed, remembered in future
generations, and fame was won above all by battle. The deeds of great
warriors were celebrated after their deaths in poems that found acclamation
not only with their families but with a wider public.
Of the Gaulish Bards we are told that they ‘sang the brave deeds of out-
standing men in heroic verses to the sweet notes of the lyre’. Lucan writes that
(^105) Rowland (1990), 419, 422, 429–35 ~ 477–86, = Koch–Carey (2000), 352 f., 364, 367–9; Il.
- 719–76; Cath Finntrága (ed. K. Meyer, Oxford 1885), 995–1034; Táin (L) 3440–63, 3470–85,
3491–550, 3556–95, cf. (I) 3106–42. See also the laments for kings of Leinster in Campanile
(1988), nos. 5, 11, 14–15.
(^106) Hervarar saga 14 =Hunnenschlacht 33 Neckel–Kuhn.
66 1. Poet and Poesy