Odyssey 8.477 · Book 8, lines 477–480
Why singers are honoured
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Odysseus — κῆρυξ, τῆ δή, τοῦτο πόρε κρέας, ὄφρα φάγῃσιν, Δημοδόκῳ· καί μιν προσπτύξομαι ἀχνύμενός περ· πᾶσι γὰρ ἀνθρώποισιν ἐπιχθονίοισιν ἀοιδοὶ τιμῆς ἔμμοροί εἰσι καὶ αἰδοῦς, οὕνεκʼ ἄρα σφέας
Herald, here now, give this meat to Demodocus, that he may eat; and I will greet him, grieved though I am. For among all men upon the earth singers have a share of honour and reverence, because to them —
Word by word
The setting
Odysseus hands the herald a portion of meat to carry to Demodocus, and explains why he singles the singer out for honour. His own grief comes from Demodocus’s earlier song of the Trojan War.
A note on this passage
He sends the meat with a word for the herald to carry: give this to Demodocus, so he may eat; I want to salute him, sorrowful as I am. And he states the reason — that singers, everywhere on earth, have their share of honour and reverence.
The undercurrent is the cost of the courtesy. ‘Grieved though I am’ — ἀχνύμενός περ — admits that this same man’s song is what opened the old wound. Odysseus honours the poet not in spite of the pain but through it, and begins to say why the tribe of singers is owed such respect. The sentence reaches past the line’s end toward its answer: the Muse.
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