A great throng followed to the place of assembly. Clytoneus took the foot race. Euryalus won the wrestling. Amphialus leaped farthest. Elatreus threw the discus best. At boxing Laodamas son of Alcinous was first among them.
Alcinous soothed him. No one there meant insult; the Phaeacians were not champions in boxing or wrestling, but they loved the feast, the lyre, warm baths, changes of clothes, and the dance. He called for Demodocus again and for the young men to clear a dancing floor.
Demodocus struck up the love of Ares and Aphrodite: how they first lay together in Hephaestus’s house, how Helios saw them and told the smith, how Hephaestus forged invisible chains around the bed and caught them when Ares came again.
Odysseus answered that cares weighed more on him than contests. He had suffered enough and only wanted passage home. Then Euryalus sneered that the guest looked like a trader hugging his cargo, not an athlete.
When he had washed and put on the fresh cloak and tunic, he came from the bath and joined the men at their wine. The herald led Demodocus back and seated him midmost of the guests against a tall pillar.
Hephaestus shouted to Zeus and the other gods to come see the laughable wrong. Poseidon, Hermes, and Apollo came; the goddesses stayed home for shame. The gods laughed at the limping smith who had trapped the swiftest. Apollo asked Hermes if he would sleep in such bonds with golden Aphrodite; Hermes said he would take three times the chains and all the gods looking on.
Poseidon alone took it seriously and pledged to pay Ares’s damages if the war-god fled. Hephaestus freed them. Ares went to Thrace; Aphrodite to Cyprus and Paphos, where the Graces bathed her and dressed her in lovely clothes. Odysseus and the Phaeacians delighted in the song.