Odyssey 8.499 · Book 8, lines 499–503
The song begins: the ships sail, the horse waits
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ὣς φάθʼ, ὁ δʼ ὁρμηθεὶς θεοῦ ἤρχετο, φαῖνε δʼ ἀοιδήν, ἔνθεν ἑλὼν ὡς οἱ μὲν ἐυσσέλμων ἐπὶ νηῶν βάντες ἀπέπλειον, πῦρ ἐν κλισίῃσι βαλόντες, Ἀργεῖοι, τοὶ δʼ ἤδη ἀγακλυτὸν ἀμφʼ Ὀδυσῆα ἥατʼ ἐνὶ Τρώων ἀγορῇ κεκαλυμμένοι ἵππῳ·
So he spoke; and the bard, stirred by the god, began, and let his song shine forth, taking it up from the point where some had boarded the well-benched ships and were sailing away, having cast fire on their huts — the Argives — while the others, already around glorious Odysseus, sat in the Trojans' assembly-place, hidden in the horse.
Word by word
The setting
Demodocus, moved by the god, takes up the tale. He begins at the moment of the ruse: the Greek army burning its camp and sailing off in pretended flight, while a picked band sits shut inside the horse in the Trojan square around Odysseus.
A note on this passage
The song starts in the middle, as bards do — 'taking it up from there.' Demodocus splits the Greek army in two: the fleet firing its own camp and sailing off in feigned retreat, and the chosen men sealed inside the horse, sitting in the very heart of Troy around Odysseus. Two images set against each other, distance and ambush.
The verb 'let his song shine forth' says something about how Homer imagines performance: the song is stirred by the god, not willed by the man, and it comes out as light. And the sung Odysseus, hidden and silent inside the horse, mirrors the listening Odysseus, hidden and silent behind his anonymity in this hall — the same man concealed twice, once in the story and once in the room hearing it.
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