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Updated: May 11, 2025
But when the moving poet began to tell of other occurrences where Ulysses had been present, the memory of his brave followers who had been with him in all difficulties, now swallowed up and lost in the ocean, and of those kings that had fought with him at Troy, some of whom were dead, some exiles like himself, forced itself so strongly upon his mind that forgetful where he was he sobbed outright with passion: which yet he restrained, but not so cunningly but Alcinous perceived it and without taking notice of it to Ulysses, privately gave signs that Demodocus should cease from his singing.
But warrior Halesus advances full on them, gathering himself behind his armour; he slays Ladon, Pheres, Demodocus; his gleaming sword shears off Strymonius' hand as it rises to his throat; he strikes Thoas on the face with a stone, and drives the bones asunder in a shattered mass of blood and brains.
Though Phoeacia was a dream-land, or a symbol of the Elysian fields, yet Homer drew his material, his island, his palaces, his harbour, his gardens of perennial beauty, from those fair cities which lay along the shores of his own Ionia; and like his blind Demodocus, Homer doubtless himself sung those very hymns which now delight us so, in the halls of many a princely Alcinous.
When the guests and the minstrel had feasted, blind Demodocus took down the lyre and sang of things that were already famous of the deeds of Achilles and Odysseus. Now when he heard the words that the minstrel uttered, Odysseus caught up his purple cloak and drew it over his head. Tears were falling down his cheeks and he was ashamed of their being seen.
In reading the "Theages" of Plato we feel a certain respect for the young seeker of wisdom whose only wish is to associate with Socrates; and there is a certain admiration for the father, Demodocus, who joyfully resigns his son, if the teacher will admit him to his friendship and impart all that he can.
The palace was quickly filled with guests, old and young, for whose cheer, and to grace Ulysses more, Alcinous made a kingly feast with banquetings and music. Then, Ulysses being seated at a table next the king and queen, in all men's view, after they had feasted Alcinous ordered Demodocus, the court-singer, to be called to sing some song of the deeds of heroes, to charm the ear of his guest.
The servant did as he was bidden, and Demodocus received the portion of honour with becoming gratitude. When the banquet was drawing towards its close Odysseus approached the minstrel, and after praising his former lay, which told of the disastrous homeward voyage of the Greeks, he begged him to sing the Lay of the Wooden Horse, the device by which Troy was taken.
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.
Lo, now arise, ye dancers of the Phaeacians, the best in the land, and make sport, that so the stranger may tell his friends, when he returneth home, how far we surpass all men besides in seamanship, and speed of foot, and in the dance and song. And let one go quickly, and fetch for Demodocus the loud lyre which is lying somewhere in our halls.
Every one who has been present at an Italian festa knows what it is like men shouting and elbowing their way through the people with flaming lamps fitted to their baskets, selling water and syrups, cakes and confectionery, melon seeds and peanuts others going about with halfpenny buttonholes of gelsomina, each neatly folded up in a vine-leaf to keep the scent in three independent piano-organs and a brass band in the middle distance an enthusiastic blind singer, a survival of Demodocus in the Odyssey, with a falsetto voice and no bridge to his nose keeping a group of listeners spellbound in the foreground with their favourite ballad, illustrated by a large sheet of oil paintings in eight tableaux, about the man who murdered his wife and mother with one bloody knife there it is lying on the supper-table and was ultimately taken by the carabinieri and executed.
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