2

LAUGHTER AND TEARS IN EARLY

GREEK LITERATURE

Richard Seaford

Xenophon describes the reaction at Sparta to the news of a victory

in which vast numbers of the enemy were killed without the loss of a
single Spartan:1

ἀρξαμένους ἀπὸ Ἀγησιλάου καὶ τῶν γερόντων καὶ τῶν ἐφόρων

πάντας κλαίειν· οὕτω κοινόν τι ἄρα χαρᾷ καὶ λύπῃ δάκρυά ἐστιν.

Beginning with Agesilaos and the elders and the ephors, they all
wept: in this way are tears common to joy and to grief.

Laughter and tears, however caused, embody release of tension,2 and

may occur together. The ancient Greeks were struck by the facts that
tears of joy and tears of grief may be indistinguishable, that even tears
of grief may be pleasant,3 that the same tears may seem to express joy
and grief, and that laughter may occur along with grief. I will focus on
a series of striking passages in early Greek literature which combine
manifestations (whether tears or laughter) of opposite moods. The
combination of opposites inherent in these passages often has much
pathos, and in several of the passages the contradiction between
negative and positive emotion is associated with a contradiction or
transition pertaining to personal identity (between family and com-
munity, death and life, unmarried and married). The fundamental
transitions of the rites of passage (in particular mystic initiation and
wedding ritual) from grief to joy were intensified and dramatised by
the expectation and promotion of manifestations of the opposed emo-
tions that were not necessarily the less genuine for being expected.
And in the ritualised inevitability of these poignant transitions the

 1 Hellenica 7.1.32 (368 bce).

  2 Vingerhoets 2013: 80, 107, 148.
 3 For example, Od. 4.102, 10.398; E. El. 126, Tro. 607.

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 ­28 richard seaford

striking physiological similarity of grief and joy may have played a

part. Characteristic of tragedy (in contrast to real life) is the failure of
these transitions,4 in which the ambivalence of tears may be exploited
(I will give examples). Not all the passages I discuss concern rites of
passage. But the social importance of the rites of passage may have
been influential in embedding the combined manifestation of grief and
joy in the Greek tradition.5
In the sixth book of the Iliad Andromache rushes with her infant son
Astyanax to the city gate, and with tears (405) urges her husband Hektor
to stay within the walls. He refuses, giving as his reasons for refusing
not only the shame he feels before the Trojans but also his courageous
spirit (thumos) (441–6). He then expresses special concern for what will
happen to Andromache after his death, and reaches out to Astyanax,
who shrinks back and cries out in fear of the plume nodding on his
father’s helmet. Mother and father both laugh (471 ἐκ δ’ ἐγέλασσε πατήρ
τε φίλος καὶ πότνια μήτηρ). Hektor puts his helmet on the ground, kisses
and rocks his child, prays that he will be a better warrior than his father,
and gives him back to his mother. ‘And she received him in her fragrant
bosom, laughing6 through her tears’ (484 δακρυόεν γελάσασα).
This laughter must seem to continue the laughter inspired by the
infant’s fear, but it is laughter now not only of amusement but also –
given the fleeting but intense family solidarity – of joy, with the result
that her tears seem to be simultaneously tears of grief (for the  immi-
nent death of Hektor, as at 405) and tears of joy. It is worth adding
that the combination of tears and laughter seems childlike, appropri-
ately here. And the audience too could hardly fail to feel simultaneous
sadness and joy.
The phrase δακρυόεν γελάσασα unites the opposites of grief and
joy. Such oxymoronic phrases are rare in Homer, in contrast to their
frequency in Athenian tragedy.7 The ambivalence of tears is rare in
Homer too, although we will soon come to another famous example. It
is more common in tragedy, for instance in the passage of Sophokles’
Elektra which we will also shortly discuss. Much of book 6 of the
Iliad, including our passage, is relatively late, closer to tragedy than
is the bulk of the epic, and from a later stage of the developing polis.
I have argued this in detail elsewhere.8 Suffice it here to note briefly
that there are in this passage three combinations (or confusions) of
opposites that are characteristic of tragedy. First, there is the fusion

  4 See e.g. Seaford 1987.

  5 See esp. Alexiou 1974.
 6 γελάσασα shoud not be translated (as it sometimes is) ‘smiling’: cf. 471.
  7 Seaford 2003: 147.
  8 Seaford 1994a: 330–42.

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 ­ laughter and tears in early greek literature 29

of life and death in the lamentation by the women of the household

for Hektor while he still lives (498–500).9 Second, there is the potential
confusion of male and female, in the comparison of Andromache – as
she leaves domestic space for the public space of the male world – to a
maenad (389),10 before being sent back home by her husband to con-
tinue her weaving (491–3). The third contradiction, again expressed in
Andromache entering public space, is between family and community:
on the one hand the fear and pity that Hektor feels for Andromache
as a potential widow, and on the other the public duty that – along
with his thumos11 – impels him to fight in the forefront (441–65). In the
phrase δακρυόεν γελάσασα the tears are for an imminent death caused
by the claim of the community, and the laughter expresses the joyful
solidarity of the family destroyed by the death.
Compare the aftermath of the mutual fratricide in Aeschylus’
Septem. The polis has been saved, says the messenger, but the royal
brothers have killed each other. He continues thus:

τοιαῦτα χαίρειν καὶ δακρύεσθαι πάρα,

πόλιν μὲν εὖ πράσσουσαν, οἱ δ’ ἐπιστάται
δισσὼ στρατηγὼ διέλαχον σφυρηλάτῳ
Σκύθῃ σιδήρῳ κτημάτων παμπησίαν·

Such things are there for rejoicing and weeping,

the polis faring well, but the overseers,
the two generals have divided up with hammered,
Scythian iron their whole property. (814–17)

Shortly thereafter the female chorus ask

πότερον χαίρω κἀπολολύξω

σωτῆρι πόλεως ἀσινείᾳ,12
ἢ τοὺς μογεροὺς καὶ δυσδαίμονας
ἀτέκνους κλαύσω πολεμάρχους.

Will I rejoice and cry in triumph

at the saving unharmedness of the polis,
or will I weep for the wretched and ill-starred,
childless war-lords? (825–8)

  9 Cf. e.g. the praise, bathing and robe for Agamemnon in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon,
and the funerary dress for Pentheus at E. Ba. 857–8.
10 Cf. Il. 22.460; Seaford 1994a: 330–8.
11 On the complexity of this combination see Cairns 1993: 80–1.
12 I reproduce Herman’s emendation.

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 ­30 richard seaford

Here too, as in the Iliad passage, a striking combination of happiness

with tears of lamentation expresses a contradiction between commu-
nity and royal family. In the Iliad passage the contradictory emotions
are created by the joy of family threatened by imminent death for the
sake of the community. But in Septem – from the polis perspective
characteristic of tragedy – the conflict between royal brothers threat-
ened the polis, which is saved along with their demise; and so the con-
tradiction between community and royal family is directly mirrored in
the contradictory emotions of citizens.
My other tragic example is Sophokles, Elektra 1309–15. Elektra,
having finally suddenly recognised Orestes, reassures him that her
mother will not see her laughing.

μῖσός τε γὰρ παλαιὸν ἐντέτηκέ μοι,

κἀπεί σ’ ἐσεῖδον, οὔ ποτ’ ἐκλήξω χαρᾷ
δακρυρροοῦσα. πῶς γὰρ ἂν λήξαιμ’ ἐγώ,
ἥτις μιᾷ σε τῇδ’ ὁδῷ θανόντα τε
καὶ ζῶντ’ ἐσεῖδον; εἴργασαι δέ μ’ ἄσκοπα.

For an ancient hatred has melted into me,

and since I saw you, I will never cease
weeping with joy. For how would I cease,
who saw you on this one journey dead
and living? You have done to me unfathomable things.

Her mother will not see her laughing, but weeping. They will be tears
of joy, but will be taken to be tears of grief. She has been lamenting
continuously (122–3, 165–6, 283), and her mother will not notice that
the tears are now of joy.
Besides this striking indistinguishability of tears of joy from tears of
grief, there are two more things here to notice relevant to our theme.
The first is the intensity of feeling caused by the reversal of grief into
joy, on the recognition of her long-lost brother who was just reported
to have been killed. The pleasure of, and need for, tears (whether of
grief or joy or even of laughter) are in release – from suffering, anxiety
or tension.13 Just as tears of grief may provide (pleasurable) release
from the grief, so tears of joy are more likely to be occasioned by
sudden release from anxiety or suffering than simply by joy that is
not preceded by anxiety or suffering. But this means that, so long as
such tears of joy persist, they arise from the partial persistence of the
anxiety or suffering from which the tears embody release. It is in the

13 Vingerhoets 2013: 80, 107, 148.

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 ­ laughter and tears in early greek literature 31

midst of her joy, just after recognising Orestes, that Elektra refers to
her mother’s murder of her father as a cloudless evil never to be dis-
pelled, never to be forgotten.14 And she says that she will never stop
weeping. We cannot help feeling that in the release and joy expressed
in her tears Elektra’s grief nevertheless persists.In the Odyssey the old
nurse suddenly recognises Odysseus by his scar:

τὴν δ’ ἅμα χάρμα καὶ ἄλγος ἕλε φρένα, τὼ δέ οἱ ὄσσε

δακρυόφιν πλῆσθεν.

Joy and pain simultaneously took her mind, and her eyes
filled with tears. (Od. 19.471–2)

The tears presumably express both the joy and the pain. Similarly,
when suddenly Telemachus recognises Odysseus,

ἀμφιχυθεὶς πατέρ’ ἐσθλὸν ὀδύρετο δάκρυα λείβων.

ἀμφοτέροισι δὲ τοῖσιν ὑφ’ ἵμερος ὦρτο γόοιο·
κλαῖον δὲ λιγέως, ἁδινώτερον ἤ τ’ οἰωνοί,
φῆναι ἢ αἰγυπιοὶ γαμψώνυχες, οἷσί τε τέκνα
ἀγρόται ἐξείλοντο πάρος πετεηνὰ γενέσθαι·
ὣς ἄρα τοί γ’ ἐλεεινὸν ὑπ’ ὀφρύσι δάκρυον εἶβον.

he embraced his good father and lamented, shedding tears,

and desire for the lament arose in them both.
Then they wept with a shrill sound, more continuously than
birds,
ospreys or vultures, whose children
countrymen took away before they could fly.
Such was the pitiable flow of tears from their
eyes. (Od. 16.214–18)

Here too the tears of joy are exactly like tears of grief, and the joy is
inseparable from memory of loss:15 Xenophon (Hell. 7.2.9) describes
how, after the men of Phlius narrowly succeeded in repelling invaders,
they clasped each other’s right hands, while the women brought wine

14 1246–50: ἀνέφελον ἐνέβαλες οὔποτε καταλύσιμον, / οὐδέ ποτε λησόμενον ἁμέτερον

/ οἷον ἔφυ κακόν. The ‘cloudless’ permanent memory evokes mystic initiation (see
below): cf. E. Hipp. 191–2; Seaford 1994b: 281.
15 So also at Od. 22.500–1: Odysseus is reunited with the serving women of his house-
hold, and τὸν δὲ γλυκὺς ἵμερος ᾕρει / κλαυθμοῦ καὶ στοναχῆς, γίνωσκε δ’ ἄρα φρεσὶ
πάσας (‘the sweet desire for weeping and groaning seized him, and he recognised
them all’).

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 ­32 richard seaford

and wept for joy, and everybody present was seized by κλαυσίγελως
(‘weeping laughter’). The unusual reaction is attributable to the inten-
sity of the terror suddenly dissolved but vividly remembered.
The other point to notice about the reversal in the Elektra passage
is that it evokes the reversal that occurred in mystic initiation. I have
argued elsewhere that mystic initiation is evoked at several points in
the play in connection with the imaginary death and ‘birth’ of Orestes
and Elektra’s reaction to them.16 For instance, with the words of
Elektra quoted above (1314–15) compare the mystic formula (on a
fourth-century bce funerary gold leaf):17

νῦν ἔθανες καὶ νῦν ἐγένου, τρισόλβιε, ἅματι τῷδε.

Now you died and now you came onto being, thrice-blessed one,
on this day.

The mystic initiate – like Elektra – passes suddenly from lamentation

to salvation, as a result of the return of someone to life. For instance,
Firmicus Maternus (De Err. 22) records a ritual in which the initiands
lament an image on a bed, after which a light is brought in and the
priest says ‘take courage, initiates, the god having been saved, for
there will be for you salvation out of suffering’. Demeter’s search for
Korē (lost to the underworld) was accompanied or imitated by the
Eleusinian initiands, ‘and when she is found the whole rite concludes
with the celebration and throwing of torches’.18 The search for Korē
has been identified with the confused wanderings of the initiands
in the darkness described by Plutarch as transformed by a wonder-
ful light into entry into beautiful places.19 In the sixth-century bce
Homeric Hymn to Demeter (an aetiology of the Eleusinian mysteries),
the mourning Demeter is made by Iambe to smile and laugh and be
cheerful (204 μειδῆσαι γελάσαι τε καὶ ἵλαον σχεῖν θυμόν).20 Mystic
initiation is a context for the sudden reversal of suffering into joy, but
also for their simultaneous co-existence: even in their initial suffering,
and despite the secrecy of the ritual, the initiands must have believed

16 59–60, 65–6, 1223, 1228–9, 1232–3, 1246–50, 1285–7, 1314–15, 1354–6, 1489–90:
Seaford 1994b.
17 No. 26 in Graf and Iles Johnston 2007.
18 Lactantius Div. Inst. Ep. 18.7; for other ancient sources for the ritual and discus-
sion see Parker 2005: 355–6.
19 Plutarch fr. 178; Sourvinou-Inwood 2003, followed by Parker 2005: 355–6.
20 Plutarch’s idea (Mor. 565f) of souls in the underworld indulging in bacchic rev-
elling and laughter (βακχεία καὶ γέλως) reminds us of the Eleusinian initiates in
the underworld in Aristophanes’ Frogs (and cf. Plut. Mor. 1105b). Compare the
Christian risus paschalis.

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 ­ laughter and tears in early greek literature 33

in a positive outcome to the ritual, with the result that the fearful suf-
fering was mixed with hope: according to Plutarch ‘they taste of joy
such as is had by those being initiated, joy mixed with disturbance and
fluttering anxiety along with sweet hope’.21 And according to Aelius
Aristides good hope is, in mystic initiation, present together with
the fear.22 It is worth mentioning here the extraordinary reaction of
Socrates’ friends to his imminent death, about which he is so cheerful
that they alternate between laughter and tears (Phaedo 59a τοτὲ μὲν
γελῶντες, ἐνίοτε δὲ δακρύοντες).
The rites of passage that were in Greek antiquity no less central
than mystic initiation to an individual life were the wedding and the
funeral. And they might be, like mystic initiation, the site of opposite
emotions. ‘No wedding without tears, no funeral without laughter’,
proclaims the proverb from Pontos cited in both the Introduction and
the Afterword to this volume. From antiquity onwards the funeral of
an unmarried girl may be imagined as a wedding.23
Ancient Greek wedding songs are largely lost. But there is scattered
evidence for the resistance of the bride being expressed in tears.24
Both Catullus’ wedding songs have many Greek elements, and they
both mention the tears of the bride. But both songs are full of praise,
encouragement, and comfort for the bride. All ritual must end well,
including (or especially) the rite of passage. The brides must express
initial reluctance: in Catullus it is claimed that their complaints are
feigned (62.36–7), and his translation of Callimachus refers to the
‘false little tears’ of brides (66.16). But in the end the encouragement
must surely be seen to be effective, a process in which laughter may
well have played a part. Here then is another rite of passage in which,
as in mystic initiation, the fundamental transition is expressed in
opposed emotions either simultaneously or in quick succession.
As for the funeral, even this must end well. For example, the Iliad
ends with the feast that concludes the funeral of Hektor. Earlier, after
the Myrmidons lamented Patroklos, Achilles provided for them a
‘heart-pleasing’ funeral feast (23.8–29). The contrast is best expressed
in a fragment of new comedy by Hegesippus (fr. 1.11–16 K-A), in
which a chef boasts as follows:

ὅταν ἐν περιδείπνῳ τυγχάνω διακονῶν,

ἐπὰν τάχιστ’ ἔλθωσιν ἀπὸ τῆς ἐκφορᾶς,

21 Plutarch Mor. 943c γεύονται χαρᾶς, οἵαν οἱ τελούμενοι μάλιστα θορύβῳ καὶ πτοήσει
συγκεκραμένην μετ’ ἐλπίδος ἡδείας ἔχουσι.
22 Aelius Aristides 48.28 παρεστώσης ἅμα τῷ φόβῳ τῆς ἀγαθῆς ἐλπίδος.
23 Alexiou and Dronke 1971; Alexiou 1974; Seaford 1987.
24 Seaford 1987: 106–7, 113–14.

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 ­34 richard seaford

τὰ βάπτ’ ἔχοντες, τοὐπίθημα τῆς χύτρας

ἀφελὼν ἐποίησα τοὺς δακρύοντας γελᾶν.
τοιοῦτος ἔνδοθέν τις ἐν τῷ σώματι
διέδραμε γαργαλισμὸς ὡς ὄντων γάμων.

When I happen to be officiating in the funeral feast,

as soon as they return from the carrying-out
wearing dyed clothes, I – taking the lid from the pot –
made those weeping to laugh.
Such is the tickling that ran
through their body, as at a wedding.

Finally, we return briefly to mystic initiation. In Euripides’ Herakles,

Herakles returns from the underworld just in time to save his family
from being killed by the usurper Lykos. Herakles reveals that before
descending to the underworld he was initiated into the mysteries (613).
Indeed his Eleusinian initiation was an important tradition at Athens.25
The association of salvation with the return of someone (notably
Persephone) from the underworld is a feature of mystic initiation,
which is evoked by several passages of the drama.26 And as Lykos
enters the house (to be killed by Herakles) the chorus sing that Herakles
has returned from Hades and that now there will be justice, continuing

χαρμοναὶ δακρύων ἔδοσαν ἐκβολάς·

πάλιν ἔμολεν,
ἃ πάρος οὔποτε διὰ φρενὸς ἤλπισ’ ἂν
παθεῖν, γᾶς ἄναξ.

Joys of tears gave their outflows;

there has come back – what previously I would never have
hoped to experience –
the king of the land. (742–6)

The joyful tears are justified by the (initiation-like) reversal, but in this
context cannot fail to evoke also the catastrophe about to be imposed
by the gods on Herakles, his frenzied destruction of his own family.
Similarly, Elektra’s outlandish claim that she will never stop weeping
for joy (now that she has seen Orestes come to life) evokes the perma-
nence of the happiness bestowed by mystic initiation, but is one of the
many expressions – in the conclusion of the play – of ambivalence:

25 Parker 2005: 345, 363 n.159.

26 531, 562–4, 839.

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 ­ laughter and tears in early greek literature 35

along with victory, the horrors of the past continue in and beyond
the matricide.27 It is characteristic of tragic pathos to evoke a rite of
passage in a situation in which, in contrast to that rite, there is in fact
no transition to permanent happiness.28
In Herakles and Elektra the tears are declared to be of joy, but seem
(because tears also express grief) to presage disaster: they turn out to
partake – even though joyful – of the striking and fundamental ambiva-
lence of tears, like an oracle that seems to predict victory but actually
predicts defeat.29 Tears and laughter absorb the soul but are involun-
tary, and so may seem to be divinely imposed. In the Odyssey they are
imposed on the suitors by Athena as a presage of impending doom:

         μνηστῆρσι δὲ Παλλὰς Ἀθήνη

ἄσβεστον γέλω ὦρσε, παρέπλαγξεν δὲ νόημα.
οἱ δ’ ἤδη γναθμοῖσι γελώων ἀλλοτρίοισιν,
αἱμοφόρυκτα δὲ δὴ κρέα ἤσθιον· ὄσσε δ’ ἄρα σφέων
δακρυόφιν πίμπλαντο, γόον δ’ ὠΐετο θυμός.

  In the suitors Pallas Athene

aroused unquencheable laughter, and made their thinking
wander.
They laughed with jaws no longer their own,
and ate meat mixed up with blood, and their eyes
filled with tears, and their heart imagined lamentation.
(20.345–9)
The impression given is that the laughter produces tears, which in
turn produce the thought of lamentation. Theoklymenos then cor-
rectly interprets this to signify a mass descent to the underworld. As
in Herakles and Elektra, the tears (here along with laughter) presage
disaster, but here this is made clearer by the transition to lamentation.
Foreshadowed in the same way were the two greatest military dis-
asters recorded for us by the Greek historians of the fifth century bce.
On the way to Greece, and surveying the Hellespont hidden by his fleet
and the shores and plains of Abydos full of men, Xerxes first called
himself blessed, and then wept, writes Herodotus (7.45). When the
Athenian expedition sailed off to Sicily, almost everybody in the city
went down to the Peiraeus to see them off, writes Thucydides (6.30.2),
with hope and at the same time with lamentations (καὶ μετ’ ἐλπίδος τε
ἅμα ἰόντες καὶ ὀλοφυρμῶν).

27 Note esp. 1246–55, 1487–90, 1498; in general Seaford 1985.

28 For example, Seaford 1987.
29 For example, Hdt. 1.53.

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