Odyssey 8.71 · Book 8, lines 71–74
The Muse moves the bard to sing
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οἱ δʼ ἐπʼ ὀνείαθʼ ἑτοῖμα προκείμενα χεῖρας ἴαλλον. αὐτὰρ ἐπεὶ πόσιος καὶ ἐδητύος ἐξ ἔρον ἕντο, μοῦσʼ ἄρʼ ἀοιδὸν ἀνῆκεν ἀειδέμεναι κλέα ἀνδρῶν, οἴμης τῆς τότʼ ἄρα κλέος οὐρανὸν εὐρὺν ἵκανε,
So they put forth their hands to the good things lying ready before them. But when they had put away the desire for drink and food, the Muse stirred the bard to sing the glories of men, from that lay whose fame then reached the wide heaven:
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The setting
The blind bard Demodocus is settled in the hall. The feasting done, the Muse now moves him to sing — and Homer names the theme: the famous deeds of heroes, a lay whose fame had reached heaven.
A note on this passage
The feast ends in the usual formula — hands to the food, desire for food and drink put away — and then the singing begins. The Muse stirs Demodocus to sing the glories of men, and Homer marks the song as one already famous, its fame reaching the wide sky.
The phrase 'the glories of men,' klea andrōn, is the epic's own name for what epic does: it is the standing formula for heroic song, the thing the Iliad and the Odyssey both are. For a moment the poem describes itself from the outside — a bard singing kleos at a feast — and the theme he is handed is the very kind of story we are inside. The song within the song is about to name a real name.
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