Editing Andromache (section)

== Role in society ==

===Mourning her husband===
Andromache's gradual discovery of her husband's death and her immediate lamentation (22.437–515) culminate the shorter lamentations of Priam and [[Hecuba]] upon Hector's death (22.405–36). In accordance with traditional customs of mourning, Andromache responds with an immediate and impulsive outburst of grief (''goos'') that begins the ritual lamentation.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Haussker|first=Faya|date=2011 |title=Lament|encyclopedia=The Homer Encyclopedia |editor=M. Finkelberg |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |pages=455–456 |isbn=978-1-4051-7768-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gTxCvwEACAAJ&pg=PA53}}</ref> She casts away her various pieces of headdress (22.468-72) and leads the Trojan women in ritual mourning, both of which they did (22.405–36). Although Andromache adheres to the formal practice of female lamentation in Homeric epic,<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Lateiner|first=Donald|date=2011 |title=Weeping|encyclopedia=The Homer Encyclopedia |editor=M. Finkelberg |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |pages=933–934 |isbn=978-1-4051-7768-9 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gTxCvwEACAAJ&pg=PA933}}</ref> the raw emotion of her discovery yields a miserable beginning to a new era in her life without her husband and, ultimately, without a home. The final stage of the mourning process occurs in ''Iliad'' 24 in the formal, communal grieving (''thrēnos'') upon the return of Hector's body (24.703–804). In a fragment of [[Ennius]]' ''Andromacha'', quoted by [[Cicero]] in the Tusculan Disputations (3.44-46), Andromacha sings about her loss of Hector.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Euripides |title=ENNIUS, Tragedies |url=https://www.loebclassics.com/view/ennius-tragedies/2018/pb_LCL537.29.xml |access-date=17 October 2022 |website=Loeb Classical Library}}</ref>

===Duties as wife===
In ''Iliad'' 22, Andromache is portrayed as the perfect wife, weaving a cloak for her husband in the innermost chambers of the house and preparing a bath in anticipation of his return from battle (22.440–6). Here she is carrying out an action Hector had ordered her to perform during their conversation in ''Iliad'' 6 (6.490–92), and this obedience is another display of womanly virtue in Homer's eyes.<ref>{{cite book|last=Keller|first=Albert Galloway|author-link=Albert Galloway Keller|title=Homeric Society: A Sociological Study of the Iliad and Odyssey|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D3tzAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA230|year=1913|publisher=Longmans, Green, and Company|location=New York|page=230}}</ref> However, Andromache is seen in ''Iliad'' 6 in an unusual place for the traditional housewife, standing before the ramparts of Troy (6.370–373). Traditional gender roles are breached as well, as Andromache gives Hector military advice (6.433–439). Although her behavior may seem nontraditional, hard times disrupt the separate spheres of men and women, requiring a shared civic response to the defence of the city as a whole.<ref>[[Barbara Graziosi|Graziosi, Barbara]], and Haubold, Johannes, ed. Homer Iliad Book VI. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. pp. 44–46.</ref> Andromache's sudden tactical lecture is a way to keep Hector close, by guarding a section of the wall instead of fighting out in the plains. Andromache's role as a mother, a fundamental element of her position in marriage, is emphasized within this same conversation. Their infant son, Astyanax, is also present at the ramparts as a maid tends to him. Hector takes his son from the maid, yet returns him to his wife, a small action that provides great insight into the importance Homer placed on her care-taking duties as mother (6.466–483). A bonding moment between mother and father occurs in this scene when Hector's helmet scares Astyanax, providing a moment of light relief in the story. After Hector's death in ''Iliad'' 22, Andromache's foremost concern is Astyanax's fate as a mistreated orphan (22.477–514).