ABSTRACT
Interjections and onomatopoeia were common in lamenti and played a specific role. Interjections invade the whole stanza and are used to emphasize suffering, to such effect that it takes precedence over all else: what counts is the sense of pain; the reporting of current affairs is thrust into the background. Interjections disrupt narrative; they interfere with the linearity of the account. With respect to prosopopeia, lamenti a genre constituted a locus in which personifications of cities, states, and virtues could call out to each other. This locus functioned through a specific type of textual construction, founded on dialogues and reported speech that reinforced the intrusion of orality. The idea that written texts included elements of orality in order to be understood also needs to be questioned. The ahimé of the Italian lamento owes much to the oimoi and the aiaî of Greek tragedy.
