Kommos

κομμός - kommos

Originally the Kommos was a formal Dionysiac fertility rite, a phallic dance.

Literally a "Beating of the Breast", a dirge or lament, sung by a character in a play alternating with the chorus: the choric part of a tragedy as classified by the author of Chapter 12 of Aristotle's Poetics under the three headings: Parodos, Stasimon, and Kommos. He says the kommos is a joint lamentation by chorus and actors.

A dirge sung by a character by himself without the Chorus was called a monody.

Kommos was the original kernel of Tragedy, as the Parabasis is held to be central to Comedy, but also that the whole performance was originally a lamentation over a dead god or hero. Tragedy is thus a ritual lament.

ReferencesLiddell Scott Lexicon

κομμός ¹ κόπτω

1.a striking: esp. like Lat. planctus (from plango), a beating of the breast in lamentation, ἔκοψα κομμὸν Ἄριον I lamented with Median lamentation, Aesch.

2.in attic Drama, a wild lament, sung alternately by an actor and the chorus, such as Aesch. Ag. 1072-1185.

Zimmermann, Bernhard (Freiburg), “Amoibaion”, in: Brill’s New Pauly, Antiquity volumes edited by: Hubert Cancik and , Helmuth Schneider, English Edition by: Christine F. Salazar, Classical Tradition volumes edited by: Manfred Landfester, English Edition by: Francis G. Gentry.  <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1574-9347_bnp_e118290>
First published online: 2006 First print edition: 9789004122598, 20110510

Amoibaion — Brill

THE STRUCTURE OF GREEK TRAGEDY D. J. Mastronarde

Amoibaion - Brill

Kommos (theatre) - Wikipedia

Monody - Wikipedia

Ann Suter (5 February 2008). Lament: Studies in the Ancient Mediterranean and Beyond. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-971427-8.

Margaret Alexiou; Dimitrios Yatromanolakis; Παναγιώτης Α Ροϊλός (2002). The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition. Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 978-0-7425-0757-9.
The Ritual Lament in Greek Tradition - Google Books https://bit.ly/3HmzD1i

The Function and Significance of Music in Tragedy
Author(s): G. M. SIFAKIS
Source: Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies, Vol. 45 (2001), pp. 21-35
Published by: Wiley
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43646652

The So-Called Kommos in Greek Tragedy
Author(s): F. M. Cornford
Source: The Classical Review, Vol. 27, No. 2 (Mar., 1913), pp. 41-45
Published by: Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/699753

Interaction between Chorus and Characters in the Oresteia
Author(s): D. J. Conacher
Source: The American Journal of Philology, Vol. 95, No. 4 (Winter, 1974), pp. 323-343
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/294013

The Architecture of Sophocles' "Ajax"
Author(s): T. K. Hubbard
Source: Hermes, 131. Jahrg., H. 2 (2003), pp. 158-171
Published by: Franz Steiner Verlag
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4477545