Download Question 3 Sample Answer “I respect you, Demodocus, more than

Question 3 Sample Answer
“I respect you, Demodocus, more than any man alive surely the Muse has taught you, Zeus’s daughter,
or god Apollo himself. How true to life,
all too true... you sing the Achaeans’ fate,
all they did and suffered, all they soldiered through,
as if you were there yourself or heard from one who was.
But come now, shift your ground. Sing of the wooden horse
Epeus built with Athena’s help, the cunning trap that
good Odysseus brought one day to the heights of Troy,
filled with fighting men who laid the city waste.
Sing that for me - true to life as it deserves and I will tell the world at once how freely
the Muse gave you the gods’ own gift of song.”
This is a speech by Odysseus to the Phaeacian bard (aiodos) Demodocus. It occurs in Book 8 of
the Odyssey, near the end of the festivities held by the king Alcinous in honour of this mysterious
stranger’s arrival in Scheria; the ensuing song by Demodocus, along with Odysseus’ tearful
reaction to that song, forms the immediate prelude to his dramatic unveiling of his identity at the
start of Book 9 and to his subsequent narrative of his own adventures since the fall of Troy.
This passage shows Odysseus taking decisive control of his own image among the Phaeacians.
The first song by Demodocus featured Odysseus in a somewhat less flattering light, as one who
quarrelled with Achilles (as Agamemnon does in the Iliad). Especially given the Phaeacians’
general dislike of strife and tension (they have moved far away from the violent Cyclops to avoid
any conflict, and Alcinous shows his aversion to quarrels during his handling of the Broadsea
incident), Odysseus (who is now paving the way for his self-revelation) will be keen not to let his
hosts think of him as anything less than a perfect team player (as he is represented by Nestor
during one of the latter’s speeches to Telemachus in Book 3). Odysseus now makes a significant
change to the course of the day’s entertainment (“shift your ground”), just as he changes so many
things in the world around him: the story proposed by him to Demodocus suggests collaboration
rather than conflict, since it shows him working with the craftsman Epeus and the goddess
Athena to accomplish the ruse of the Trojan Horse, instead of quarrelling with Achilles. The
story also, of course, shows Odysseus at his most glorious, with his finest heroic achievement (at
least before his triumphant return to Ithaca): the Trojan Horse showcases his cunning (Odysseus’
key heroic attribute, and one that he emphasizes again to the Phaeacians during his narrative of
e.g. his escape from the Cyclops), and it also allows him to achieve the greatest feat of modern
arms, namely the sack of Troy. The crafty Odysseus is thus presented as the one really
responsible for Greek victory, rather than the valiant Achilles through the killing of Hector (a
tension between Achilles and Odysseus is also suggested during their confrontation in the
Underworld in Book 11, when Achilles bemoans his early death and thereby implies that
Odysseus can surpass him by surviving to a ripe old age).
This speech can be paralleled with other methods by which Odysseus ensures a favourable
impression of himself among the Phaeacians: he makes a spectacular throw of the discus, in
response to Broadsea’s taunts, so that the Phaeacians will not think of him as some lowly, feeble
tradesman; he downplays his marriage to Penelope (at least initially), to suggest his availability
as a suitor for Nausicaa; he emphasizes his conflict with the Cyclops (the bane of the
Phaeacians); and he emphasizes the importance of hosts treating him in accordance with the
principles of xenia, and the negative consequences for hosts who fail to do so.
The speech also illustrates Odysseus’ artful use of flattery to get his way, with his fulsome praise
for Demodocus: compare his flattery of Nausicaa upon first arriving in Scheria in Book 6 (when
he compares her to a goddess), and his extremely tactful refusal of Calypso’s advances in Book 5
(a marked contrast to the rudeness displayed by Gilgamesh toward Ishtar during a comparable
scene of the Epic of Gilgamesh).
There is also a certain metaliterary dimension to this speech: Homer (or whoever composed the
Odyssey) is commenting on the nature of the craft of aoidos (the need to report historical events
with perfect accuracy, reliance on divine inspiration from the Muse or Apollo), and on the bard’s
place within society. Demodocus’ elevated stature among the Phaeacians is part of a general
utopian colouring to their exotic society (compare the magically fertile garden of Alcinous, or
the Phaeacians’ magic ships): he is respected and honoured (as suggested by his name, which
means “welcomed by the people” in Greek), and Odysseus here joins in the Phaeacians’ general
deferential treatment of their aoidos (having already offered Demodocus choice cuts of meat).
This is how Homer himself would ideally like to be treated (and he implies that such treatment
will get the best results from him), and is in marked contrast to the “real-world” lot of poor
Phemius: in Book 1, Phemius is bullied and intimidated by the violent suitors to perform songs
(on the Greek heroes’ returns, nostoi, from Troy) targeted against Odysseus’ interests, as part of
the suitors’ campaign to wear Penelope down and break down the hopes of Penelope and
Telemachus.
In Book 23, Odysseus once again makes cunning use of a bard to project the right public image,
when he instructs the newly spared Phemius to perform a festive wedding song as a means of
concealing (for now) the recent massacre of the suitors from any Ithacans passing by the palace.