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Updated: May 11, 2025
In the Iliad we hear of no minstrels in camp: in the Odyssey a prince has a minstrel among his retainers Demodocus, at the court of Phaeacia; Phemius, in the house of Odysseus. In Ionia, when princes had passed away, rhapsodists recited for gain in marketplaces and at fairs. The parallel with France is so far complete.
Odysseus noticed that he ate slowly and deliberately, and seemed to feel for the cup when he wished to drink, "It is Demodocus, the blind harper," whispered Alcinous. "We shall presently have a taste of his quality. He is a rare minstrel."
Every line smacks of the memories of Nombre and of Zutphen, of Tilbury Fort and of Calais Roads; and many a gray-headed veteran, as he read them, must have turned away his face to hide the noble tears, as Ulysses from Demodocus when he sang the song of Troy.
Well then, that Imperfection of Self-Control is not Confirmed Viciousness is plain: and yet perhaps it is such in a way, because in one sense it is contrary to moral choice and in another the result of it: at all events, in respect of the actions, the case is much like what Demodocus said of the Miletians.
After the games they returned to the hall, and the herald led in Demodocus, the blind bard, "Dear to the Muse, Who yet appointed him both good and ill, Took from him sight, but gave him strains divine." He took for his theme the wooden horse, by means of which the Greeks found entrance into Troy.
Now none of all the company marked him weeping; but Alcinous alone noted it, and was ware thereof, as he sat nigh him and heard him groaning heavily. And presently he spake among the Phaeacians, masters of the oar: 'Hearken, ye captains and counsellors of the Phaeacians, and now let Demodocus hold his hand from the loud lyre, for this song of his is nowise pleasing alike to all.
Come forward and show your nimbleness, so that the stranger may tell his friends, when he is amongst them, how far we surpass all men in dancing as well as in seamanship and speed of foot. A place was levelled for the dance, and the blind minstrel, Demodocus, took the lyre in his hands and made music, while youths skilled in the dance struck the ground with their feet.
And the henchman drew near bearing the loud lyre to Demodocus, who gat him into the midst, and round him stood boys in their first bloom, skilled in the dance, and they smote the good floor with their feet. And Odysseus gazed at the twinklings of the feet, and marvelled in spirit.
Meinsius thinks that the custom of infibulating may be traced back to the time of the siege of Troy, for the singer Demodocus, who was left with Clytemnestra by Agamemnon, appears to that critic, to have been a eunuch, or, at least, to here been infibulated.
After the games they returned to the hall, and the herald led in Demodocus, the blind bard, "... Dear to the Muse, Who yet appointed him both good and ill, Took from him sight, but gave him strains divine." He took for his theme the "Wooden Horse," by means of which the Greeks found entrance into Troy.
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