Odyssey 8.492 · Book 8, lines 492–495
Sing the Wooden Horse
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ἀλλʼ ἄγε δὴ μετάβηθι καὶ ἵππου κόσμον ἄεισον δουρατέου, τὸν Ἐπειὸς ἐποίησεν σὺν Ἀθήνῃ, ὅν ποτʼ ἐς ἀκρόπολιν δόλον ἤγαγε δῖος Ὀδυσσεὺς ἀνδρῶν ἐμπλήσας οἵ ῥʼ Ἴλιον ἐξαλάπαξαν.
But come now, change your theme, and sing the building of the wooden horse, which Epeios made with Athena, which noble Odysseus once led up to the citadel as a snare, having filled it with the men who sacked Ilios.
Word by word
The setting
The heart of the request. Odysseus asks Demodocus to leave his present theme and sing the trick that took Troy: the horse Epeios built with Athena's help, which Odysseus himself smuggled onto the citadel packed with fighting men.
A note on this passage
Odysseus names the song he wants: not the quarrel already sung, but the wooden horse — its making by Epeios under Athena's hand, and its use as the ambush that ended the war. He describes it from the outside, as any listener might know it, third person and heroic.
What he does not say is that he is asking to hear himself. 'Noble Odysseus led it up to the citadel' is the request of the man who did exactly that, sitting hidden and anonymous at a foreign king's table. He calls up his own greatest stratagem by name while keeping his own name secret — and by the song's end the strain of hearing it will break the disguise he is guarding here.
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