Odyssey 8.266 · Book 8, lines 266–270
Demodocus sings of Ares and Aphrodite
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αὐτὰρ ὁ φορμίζων ἀνεβάλλετο καλὸν ἀείδειν ἀμφʼ Ἄρεος φιλότητος εὐστεφάνου τʼ Ἀφροδίτης, ὡς τὰ πρῶτα μίγησαν ἐν Ἡφαίστοιο δόμοισι λάθρῃ, πολλὰ δʼ ἔδωκε λέχος δʼ ᾔσχυνε καὶ εὐνὴν Ἡφαίστοιο ἄνακτος. ἄφαρ δέ οἱ ἄγγελος ἦλθεν
Then he, playing the lyre, struck up beautifully to sing about the love of Ares and fair-crowned Aphrodite — how first they lay together secretly in Hephaestus's house; and he gave many gifts, and defiled the bed and the marriage-bed of lord Hephaestus. And at once a messenger came to him,
Word by word
The setting
As the young men dance, Demodocus sings. His subject is a scandal among the gods: the affair of Ares, god of war, and Aphrodite, goddess of love, the wife of the smith-god Hephaestus.
A note on this passage
Now the bard strikes up a fine song: the love of Ares and fair-crowned Aphrodite — how they first lay together in secret in Hephaestus's house, Ares giving many gifts and defiling the bed and marriage-couch of lord Hephaestus. At once a messenger comes to the wronged husband.
The undercurrent is the song's comic register at the poem's very center. This is the one wholly light tale in the Odyssey — divine adultery played for laughter, the cuckold a smith rather than a king. Yet its very subject is a marriage-bed dishonored while its owner is elsewhere, the anxiety that runs beneath the whole poem. Among the deathless gods it is farce; in Ithaca, or in Agamemnon's house, the same story is ruin.
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