Characters
- Alcinous — king; stops the songs; will demand identity
- Demodocus — Phaeacian bard; Muse-taught; sings Trojan themes
- Epeius — builder of the horse in the second lay (background)
- Muse — patron who gave Demodocus song and took his eyes
- Odysseus — anonymous guest; weeps at his own quarrel and horse-stratagem
- Trojan assembly — partner in the sung quarrel (background)
Places
- Assembly — quarrel and sack remembered
- Palace of Alcinous on Scheria — feast-hall
Themes
Narrative
At Alcinous’s feast Demodocus, the blind bard whom the Muse loved and deprived of sight, sang the quarrel of Odysseus and Achilles at a Trojan banquet—strife once foretold as a sign of glory. Odysseus drew his cloak over his head and wept; Alcinous alone noticed and stopped the song for games. Later, after gifts and further honor, Odysseus sent Demodocus a choice cut of meat and asked for the Wooden Horse: how the Argives’ best sat in Epeius’s horse and Odysseus brought ruin to the citadel. Demodocus sang it true; again Odysseus melted in tears like a woman captive over a fallen husband. Alcinous halted the lay and demanded the stranger’s name and story—opening the apologue of Books 9–12.
The scene makes song a recognition-engine: the hero who hid his name is proven by grief at his own kleos. Catalogue it apart from Demodocus’s comic song of Ares and Aphrodite.