Nereids

In the Odyssey as well as in the Posthomerica, the Nereids and the Muses surround Thetis on the occasion of the funeral of his son Achilles. Despite the recurring motifs, the representation of the two groups of goddesses brings about the construction of different soundscapes of this funeral scene. The variations of enunciative regime and of content provide evidence for two distinct conceptions of the epic. The purpose of this paper is to examine, first, the vocabulary of the two epics in order to highlight the nuances of the musicality of the scene of Achilles’ funeral. In addition, the objective is to show that the dactylic hexameters, the images and especially the discursive strategies of the two poems draw attention to a different poetics of grief: the consolation by the ritual in Homer cedes its place in Quintus of Smyrna to a consolation by the speech, which produces a different musical effect. This difference gives rise to reflections on the relationships between the form of the epic, its function, its audience and the modalities of its reception.