Demodocus

He is led to his chair because he cannot see, and he sings what the hall asks for. The first song is light. Then, into the evening, he picks up the lyre and gives them Troy. The whole war from the start: the years of siege, the heroes who fell, Achilles, Antilochus, Patroclus, and then the wooden horse that ended it. He sings of the horse with care, the Greek hidden inside, the city falling in a single night. The Phaeacians lean in. They love the story. They have never seen war. For Odysseus each name is a man he fought beside. The horse is the dark place in his memory full of sweat and pine and his own voice telling the men to hold steady. He pulls his cloak over his face and presses the cloth against his eyes with both hands and his shoulders shake and he cannot stop. Demodocus has no idea who he’s singing to. Alcinous is the one who hears the breathing under the cloak and raises his hand to make the bard stop. Demodocus sits with his hands on the lyre and the hall goes quiet, and only then does Odysseus give his name. The bard, blind, has been singing of this man without knowing his voice was three feet away.