The gods gathered and laughed at the limping smith who had trapped the swiftest. Apollo asked Hermes if he would lie in such chains with golden Aphrodite; Hermes said he would take three times the bonds and all the gods looking on. Poseidon pledged the damages; Hephaestus freed them.
When they had eaten Alcinous had Demodocus sing again. Odysseus sent him a choice cut of pork and asked for the tale of the wooden horse that Odysseus filled with men and brought into Troy — if the bard could tell that story true, Odysseus would say the Muse or Apollo himself had taught him.
Demodocus began from where the Argives had sailed and left the horse, and the Trojans dragged it to the citadel and sat around it arguing — some to smash it, some to cast it from the rocks, some to leave it as a peace-offering to the gods. Fate made them leave it. He sang how the Achaeans poured from the hollow horse and sacked the steep city, and how Odysseus went with Menelaus to Deiphobus’s house and there fought his hardest fight.
Euryalus gave Odysseus a bronze sword with a silver hilt and ivory sheath and asked pardon for his rude words. Odysseus accepted gift and apology. As the sun sank the presents were brought to Arete’s care.
Odysseus melted into tears as a woman weeps over her husband fallen before the city, and enemies drive her to slavery while she wastes for him. So he wept. Again only Alcinous heard. The king stopped the bard and said it was time the guest named himself — his parents, his city, his people — for no man is utterly nameless. The Phaeacian ships needed no steersman or rudder; they knew men’s minds and all cities and rich fields, and crossed the sea wrapped in mist and cloud.
Arete packed a chest, added a cloak and tunic of her own, and told Odysseus to knot the lid himself. He made the cunning knot Circe had taught him. After a warm bath and fresh clothes he went out to the wine.
Nausicaa stood by a pillar as he passed. “Farewell, stranger,” she said. “When you are home remember me, for you owe me your life first.” He answered that if Zeus let him see his house again, he would pray to her as to a goddess all his days.