Explore "Odysseus" by Mary E. Burt on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Alkinoös now ordered a sumptuous feast in honor of his guest. When the table was spread, the herald who had gone for Demodokos came in leading the bard, who was blind. The gods had deprived him of sight, but had bestowed upon him the gift of song. They gave him a seat on a silver throne, amid the guests, and hung his harp against a lofty pillar, close above his head, where he could easily reach it.
When all had eaten and drunk as much as they desired, Demodokos took his lyre and began to sing about the heroes of Troy. It was a song whose fame had reached over the whole world, the story of a friendly strife between Achilles and Odysseus before Troy, in which Achilles held that Troy would fall by force, but Odysseus maintained that it would come to an end through the cunning of a few brave Greeks.