es, Demodocus is placed on a line with
the three leading figures in the last three Books--they being women,
while the singer must be a man. One reason is, possibly, that a
Phaeacian woman could not be permitted to sing such a strain as the
story of Venus and Mars. At any rate, he is fourth in the row of
shapes, all of which are significant. We catch many touches of his
personality; he is blind, though gifted with song; "evil and good" he
has received, and is therein a typical man. It is in every way a
beautiful loving picture, painted with strong deep undertones of
sympathy; no wonder is it, therefore, that Demodocus in all ages has
been taken as a portrait of Homer by himself, showing glimpses of the
man, of his station in life, and of his vocation. Later on we shall
consider this point in more detail.

The three songs of the bard furnish the main landmarks for the organism
of the Book. All of them will be found more or less intimately
connected with the great event of the immediate Past, the story of
Troy. Phaeacia shows an intense interest in that story and the bard
approves himself its worthy singer. Indeed the three songs stand in
direct relation to the Iliad; the first deals with an event antecedent
to the Iliad; the second has the theme of the Iliad, though in a
changed form, inasmuch as the seducer, the wife and the husband are
here Gods (Mars, Venus, Vulcan) instead of mortals (Paris, Helen,
Menelaus); the third deals with an event subsequent to the Iliad. Yet
the singer carefully avoids repeating anything in the Iliad. It is
almost impossible not to think that he had not that poem in mind; or,
rather, we are forced to conclude that the present author of the
Odyssey knew the Iliad, and we naturally think that both were by the
same man. Demodocus is the singer of the Trojan War, yet he shuns
singing what has already been sung about it. Herein we may catch
another faint reflection of Homer, the organizer, the transfigurer of
old legends into his two poems. Note also that he hovers around the
Iliad, before and after it, yet never into it, here and elsewhere in
the Odyssey; specially in the Third Book have we observed the same
fact.

In the present Book, however, is another strand; besides these songs of
the bard belonging to the past are the doings in Phaeacia belonging to
the present, which doings have a connection and a correspondence with
the songs. Thus we observe three divisions in the Book, and two threads