Troy: The Musical? The Lost Song of Memnon

Homer was sung, and the technique for reconstructing that song fits Memnon — the one Trojan story Homer never tells — using the Iliad 's own formulae for Hector's death and Thetis's grief; here is an attempt to experiment with it. This essay is part of an ongoing Homer project asking what ancient evidence, and modern tools, can and cannot tell us about the epics. Earlier installments include:…