ἦ ῥα καὶ ἐς θρόνον ἷζε παρ᾽ Ἀλκίνοον βασιλῆα·
οἱ δ᾽ ἤδη μοίρας τ᾽ ἔνεμον κερόωντό τε οἶνον.470
κῆρυξ δ᾽ ἐγγύθεν ἦλθεν ἄγων ἐρίηρον ἀοιδόν,
Δημόδοκον λαοῖσι τετιμένον· εἷσε δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ αὐτὸν
μέσσῳ δαιτυμόνων, πρὸς κίονα μακρὸν ἐρείσας.
δὴ τότε κήρυκα προσέφη πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς,
νώτου ἀποπροταμών, ἐπὶ δὲ πλεῖον ἐλέλειπτο,475
ἀργιόδοντος ὑός, θαλερὴ δ᾽ ἦν ἀμφὶς ἀλοιφή·
"κῆρυξ, τῆ δή, τοῦτο πόρε κρέας, ὄφρα φάγῃσιν,
Δημοδόκῳ· καί μιν προσπτύξομαι ἀχνύμενός περ·
πᾶσι γὰρ ἀνθρώποισιν ἐπιχθονίοισιν ἀοιδοὶ
τιμῆς ἔμμοροί εἰσι καὶ αἰδοῦς, οὕνεκ᾽ ἄρα σφέας480
οἴμας μοῦσ᾽ ἐδίδαξε, φίλησε δὲ φῦλον ἀοιδῶν."
ὣς ἄρ᾽ ἔφη, κῆρυξ δὲ φέρων ἐν χερσὶν ἔθηκεν
ἥρῳ Δημοδόκῳ· ὁ δ᾽ ἐδέξατο, χαῖρε δὲ θυμῷ.
οἱ δ᾽ ἐπ᾽ ὀνείαθ᾽ ἑτοῖμα προκείμενα χεῖρας ἴαλλον.
αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ πόσιος καὶ ἐδητύος ἐξ ἔρον ἕντο,485
δὴ τότε Δημόδοκον προσέφη πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς·
"Δημόδοκ᾽, ἔξοχα δή σε βροτῶν αἰνίζομ᾽ ἁπάντων.
ἢ σέ γε μοῦσ᾽ ἐδίδαξε, Διὸς πάϊς, ἢ σέ γ᾽ Ἀπόλλων·
λίην γὰρ κατὰ κόσμον Ἀχαιῶν οἶτον ἀείδεις,
ὅσσ᾽ ἔρξαν τ᾽ ἔπαθόν τε καὶ ὅσσ᾽ ἐμόγησαν Ἀχαιοί,490
ὥς τέ που ἢ αὐτὸς παρεὼν ἢ ἄλλου ἀκούσας.
ἀλλ᾽ ἄγε δὴ μετάβηθι καὶ ἵππου κόσμον ἄεισον
δουρατέου, τὸν Ἐπειὸς ἐποίησεν σὺν Ἀθήνῃ,
ὅν ποτ᾽ ἐς ἀκρόπολιν δόλον ἤγαγε δῖος Ὀδυσσεὺς
ἀνδρῶν ἐμπλήσας οἵ ῥ᾽ Ἴλιον ἐξαλάπαξαν.495
αἴ κεν δή μοι ταῦτα κατὰ μοῖραν καταλέξῃς,
αὐτίκ᾽ ἐγὼ πᾶσιν μυθήσομαι ἀνθρώποισιν,
ὡς ἄρα τοι πρόφρων θεὸς ὤπασε θέσπιν ἀοιδήν."
ὣς φάθ᾽, ὁ δ᾽ ὁρμηθεὶς θεοῦ ἤρχετο, φαῖνε δ᾽ ἀοιδήν,
ἔνθεν ἑλὼν ὡς οἱ μὲν ἐυσσέλμων ἐπὶ νηῶν500
βάντες ἀπέπλειον, πῦρ ἐν κλισίῃσι βαλόντες,
Ἀργεῖοι, τοὶ δ᾽ ἤδη ἀγακλυτὸν ἀμφ᾽ Ὀδυσῆα
ἥατ᾽ ἐνὶ Τρώων ἀγορῇ κεκαλυμμένοι ἵππῳ·
αὐτοὶ γάρ μιν Τρῶες ἐς ἀκρόπολιν ἐρύσαντο.
ὣς ὁ μὲν ἑστήκει, τοὶ δ᾽ ἄκριτα πόλλ᾽ ἀγόρευον505
ἥμενοι ἀμφ᾽ αὐτόν· τρίχα δέ σφισιν ἥνδανε βουλή,
ἠὲ διαπλῆξαι κοῖλον δόρυ νηλέι χαλκῷ,
ἢ κατὰ πετράων βαλέειν ἐρύσαντας ἐπ᾽ ἄκρης,
ἢ ἐάαν μέγ᾽ ἄγαλμα θεῶν θελκτήριον εἶναι,
τῇ περ δὴ καὶ ἔπειτα τελευτήσεσθαι ἔμελλεν·510
αἶσα γὰρ ἦν ἀπολέσθαι, ἐπὴν πόλις ἀμφικαλύψῃ
δουράτεον μέγαν ἵππον, ὅθ᾽ ἥατο πάντες ἄριστοι
Ἀργείων Τρώεσσι φόνον καὶ κῆρα φέροντες.
ἤειδεν δ᾽ ὡς ἄστυ διέπραθον υἷες Ἀχαιῶν
ἱππόθεν ἐκχύμενοι, κοῖλον λόχον ἐκπρολιπόντες.515
ἄλλον δ᾽ ἄλλῃ ἄειδε πόλιν κεραϊζέμεν αἰπήν,
αὐτὰρ Ὀδυσσῆα προτὶ δώματα Δηιφόβοιο
βήμεναι, ἠύτ᾽ Ἄρηα σὺν ἀντιθέῳ Μενελάῳ.
κεῖθι δὴ αἰνότατον πόλεμον φάτο τολμήσαντα
νικῆσαι καὶ ἔπειτα διὰ μεγάθυμον Ἀθήνην.520
notes
Odysseus and the Phaeacians feast. Demodocus sings a song about the Trojan horse.
Demodocus now sings his final song, about the Greeks in their wooden horse and the destruction of Troy. Like his first song, it brings tears to the hero’s eyes. Homer has been teasing us with the prospect of Odysseus emerging from his disguise into his full heroic glory, and this time he will deliver.
read full essay
In retrospect, we might say that Book 8 is structured around the three concerts, beginning with the obscure tale of a quarrel between Achilles and Odysseus, followed by the interlude on Olympus, which provides some comic relief after the tension arising from the games, and now reaching a crescendo with the exploit that defines Odysseus’s great strength as a hero, his cunning intelligence and self-control. This last song reaches back again to Sparta and Helen’s memory of Odysseus, disguised as a beggar to spy on the Trojans (4.244–64), but also looks forward to Ithaka, where disguised as a beggar, he will penetrate the royal household, gathering intelligence for his final conquest of the suitors.
The sacking of a city in war was one of the most powerful narratives in the imagination of the Greeks. It encompassed wholesale destruction, with fire and bloodshed, but also the terrible aftermath, with the looting of precious treasure, male captives slaughtered, and women enslaved. Surprisingly, neither of the Homeric epics offers a full description of Troy’s destruction. Not until Book 2 of Virgil’s Aeneid do we see the full horror of Troy’s fall. But the specter of that catastrophe looms over the Iliad from beginning to end. And the nostoi, or “stories of heroes returning from Troy,” one of the most popular topics in Greek literature, all begin with the sack of Troy. The Odyssey, the most famous of those returns, recreates the event metaphorically, with Odysseus as the disguised agent, penetrating his own palace and destroying the corrupt regime of the suitors from within.
Homer invokes images of fertility in the bard’s song and puts them to ironic use:
Ἀργεῖοι, τοὶ δ᾽ ἤδη ἀγακλυτὸν ἀμφ᾽ Ὀδυσῆα
ἥατ᾽ ἐνὶ Τρώων ἀγορῇ κεκαλυμμένοι ἵππῳ·
The Argives were already sitting around famous
Odysseus, hidden by the horse, in the Trojans’ assembly grounds.
Odyssey 8.502–3
The Greeks are “hidden” in the horse’s belly, as if it were about to give birth to the death of Troy. The soldiers are its deadly children, ready to pour down out of the womb (ἐκχύμενοι, 515), like the deceptive chains of Hephaestus (ἔχυντο, 297; see essay on Book 9.250–94). Cloaked (κεκαλυμμένοι, 503) in their secret lair, which the Trojans have benightedly enclosed (ἀμφικαλύψῃ, 511) in their citadel. The participle κεκαλυμμένοι, from καλύψω, is freighted with meaning in the poem, conjuring up the threat for males of being smothered, erased, by powerful female forces (cf. ἀμφικαλύψας, 5.493; see essay on Book 5.408–493). Odysseus has just escaped from the embodiment of that power and struggled almost all the way back to his heroic self on Scheria. The female power to create and nurture is also, in the imagination of the Greeks, potentially annihilating.
Linking Odysseus to the deceptive strategy for sacking Troy confirms the central paradox we have noted in the song of Ares and Aphrodite (cf. essay on Book 8.250–94). Odysseus, who as a famous hero struggles to escape being existentially erased by Calypso and other feminine forces who would keep him from reasserting his heroic identity in Ithaka, himself adopts the persona of the anonymous stranger, happy to use disguise to cover up his own identity if it helps him get what he wants. He is a new kind of hero in the epic tradition, nimble and sensitive to the people around him, using his intelligence and cunning to manipulate others, rather than overpowering them with physical force. Such strategies are anathema to Achilles, who never holds back whatever is inside him. Responding to Odysseus’s speech urging him to put his anger at Agamemnon aside for the sake of his fellow soldiers, he is characteristically blunt:
ἐχθρὸς γάρ μοι κεῖνος ὁμῶς Ἀΐδαο πύλῃσιν
ὅς χ᾽ ἕτερον μὲν κεύθῃ ἐνὶ φρεσίν, ἄλλο δὲ εἴπῃ.
I hate like the gates of Hades that man
who holds one thing in his mind and says another.
Iliad 9.312–13
In this and in other ways, Achilles and Odysseus represent starkly contrasting views of what constitutes heroism. Choosing a short but glorious life over a long but undistinguished existence defines Achilles’s essence as a hero. Odysseus, by contrast, will do or say anything to ensure that he survives to reclaim his place in Ithaka. Perhaps Demodocus’ first song is not entirely mysterious in this context. Highlighting the differences between the two heroes may be part of Homer’s larger project in Books 6–8, bringing to life before us the central character of his poem.
Further Reading
Pucci, P. 1987. Odysseus Polytropos: Intertextual Readings of the Odyssey and the Iliad. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Thalmann, W. 1992. The Odyssey: An Epic of Return, 61–63. New York: Twayne Publishers.
469 ἦ: “he spoke,” 3rd sing. impf. act. indic. > ἤμι.
472 λαοῖσι: dative of agent.
472 τετιμένον: masc. acc. sing. pf. pass. ptc. > τίω.
472 εἷσε … αὐτὸν: “sat him down,” causal aor. > ἵζω.
475 νώτου: with ἀργιόδοντος ὑός. The genitive is governed by the ἀπο– in ἀποπροταμών.
475 ἀποπροταμών: masc. nom. sing. aor. act. ptc. > ἀποπροτέμνω.
475 ἐπὶ δὲ: “and on it,” i.e., on the back of the boar.
475 πλεῖον ἐλέλειπτο: “more (meat) was left.”
476 ἀλοιφή: “fat.”
477 τῆ: “here!” Always followed by an imperattive in Homer.
477 ὄφρα φάγῃσιν: 3rd sing. aor. act. subj. > ἐσθίω. Purpose clause.
479 πᾶσι … ἀνθρώποισιν ἐπιχθονίοισιν: dative of interest.
480 τιμῆς … αἰδοῦς: gens., with ἔμμοροί, “endowed with” (Smyth 1415).
482 φέρων ἐν χερσὶν ἔθηκεν: understand κρέας as the object of the participle and verb.
483 ἥρῳ Δημοδόκῳ: dative of possession, with χερσὶν.
484 ἐπ᾽ ὀνείαθ᾽ ἑτοῖμα προκείμενα χεῖρας ἴαλλον: “they put their hands to the food that was prepared and ready.” A common formula in Homer (LSJ ἰάλλω), last seen in line 71. ὀνείαθ᾽ = ὀνείατα, which in the context of this formula means “food.” The subject is the assembled Phaeacians.
485 a repetition of line 72. A common formulaic line.
485 ἐξ … ἕντο: "they sent forth," "they dismissed," 3rd pl. aor. mid. indic., tmesis > ἐξίημι.
487 ἔξοχα: “above,” adverbial, with genitive.
487 αἰνίζομ(αι): see LSJ αἰνέω II.
489 κατὰ κόσμον: “in good order,” “in the right way.”
491 ὥς: “as though.”
492 μετάβηθι: 2nd sing. aor. act. imperat. > μεταβαίνω (LSJ μεταβαίνω 2).
492 κόσμον: “construction.”
492 ἄεισον: 2nd sing. aor. act. imperat. > ἀείδω.
494 δόλον: “as a trick,” pred.
495 ἐμπλήσας: “having filled (acc.) with (gen.),” masc. nom. sing. aor. act. ptc. > ἐμπίμπλημι. The accusative object, the horse, is unstated.
496 αἴ κεν … καταλέξῃς: protasis of a future more vivid conditional; αἴ κεν = ἐάν.
498 ὡς: “that,” introducing indirect discourse.
498 τοι: dat., indirect object of ὤπασε.
499 ὁρμηθεὶς θεοῦ: “inspired by the god,” aor. pass. ptc. > ὁρμάω
499 φαῖνε: "struck up [a song]," "brought into being," unaugmented impf. (LSJ φαίνω Α.I.2).
500 ἔνθεν ἑλὼν ὡς: “picking up (the story at the point) where (it describes) how …”
500 οἱ μὲν: “some…,” answered by τοὶ δ᾽ (“and others”) in line 502.
501 ἀπέπλειον: the Achaeans set fire to their camp and sailed as far as the nearby island of Tenedos, where they hid and waited while Odysseus and his companions carried out the trick with the wooden horse.
503 κεκαλυμμένοι: masc. nom. pl. pf. pass. ptc. > καλύπτω.
504 μιν: i.e., the horse.
505 ὣς ὁ μὲν ἑστήκει: “so it (i.e., the horse) stood.”
505 ἑστήκει: 3rd sing. plupf. act. indic. > ἵστημι.
505 τοὶ: "they," i.e, the Trojans.
506 τρίχα: “in three ways.” The Trojans were split into three different opinions of what should be done with the horse.
507 δόρυ: “the wood,” “the planking.”
510 τῇ περ δὴ: “the very way in which.”
510 καὶ ἔπειτα: “in the end” (Cunliffe ἔπειτα 7).
510 τελευτήσεσθαι: “to come to pass,” fut. mid. infin. > τελευτάω. For μέλλω with the future infinitive, see Smyth 1959.
511 ἐπὴν … ἀμφικαλύψῃ: temporal clause with subjunctive. ἐπὴν = ἐπεὶ ἄν. The subjunctive with ἄν (rather than optative alone) makes the clause more vivid.
512 ὅθ(ι): “where.”
514 διέπραθον: 3rd pl. aor. act. indic. > διαπέρθω. An instance of metathesis (Smyth 492).
515 ἱππόθεν: “from the horse.”
515 ἐκχύμενοι: masc. nom. pl. aor. mid. ptc. > έκχέω.
516 ἄλλον δ᾽ ἄλλῃ ἄειδε πόλιν κεραϊζέμεν αἰπήν: “he sang that another (Greek) looted the high city in another way,” i.e., each one of the Greeks looted the city in his own way. ἄειδε introduces indirect discourse with accusative (ἄλλον) and infinitive (κεραϊζέμεν > κεραίζω).
517 Ὀδυσσῆα … / βήμεναι: accusative and infinitive, continuing the indirect discourse introduced with ἄειδε in line 516.
518 Ἄρηα: accusative in indirect discourse, agreeing with Ὀδυσσῆα.
519 κεῖθι … φάτο: “it was there, he said, that …,” Demodocus is the subject of the verb, which introduces indirect discourse with accusative ([Ὀδυσσῆα] τολμήσαντα) and infinitive (νικῆσαι).
519 αἰνότατον πόλεμον: the object of τολμήσαντα.
520 καὶ ἔπειτα: “in the end” (Cunliffe ἔπειτα 7).