.

The projected festive meal is well under way when the bard begins
singing of a quarrel between Ulysses and Achilles, strains which so
vividly recall happier days that Ulysses, drawing his cloak over his
head, gives way to tears. Noting this emotion, Alcinous checks the
bard and proposes games. After displaying their skill in racing,
wrestling, discus-throwing, etc., the contestants mockingly challenge
Ulysses to give an exhibition of his proficiency in games of strength
and skill. Stung by their covert taunts, the stranger casts the discus
far beyond their best mark, and avers that although out of practice he
is not afraid to match them in feats of strength, admitting, however,
that he cannot compete with them in fleetness of foot or in the dance.
His prowess in one line and frank confession of inferiority in another
disarm further criticism, and the young men dance until the bard
begins singing of Vulcan's stratagem to punish a faithless spouse.[4]

All the Phaeacians now present gifts to the stranger, who finds
himself rich indeed, but who assures Nausicaa he will never forget she
was the first to lend him aid. Toward the close of the festivities the
blind bard sings of the wooden horse devised by Ulysses and abandoned
on the shore by the retreating Greeks. Then he describes its
triumphant entry into Troy, where for the first time in ten years all
sleep soundly without dread of a surprise. But, while the too
confident Trojans are thus resting peacefully upon their laurels, the
Greeks, emerging from this wooden horse, open the gates to their
comrades, and the sack of Troy begins! Because the stranger guest
again shows great emotion, Alcinous begs him to relate his adventures
and asks whether he has lost some relative in the war of Troy?

Touch'd at the song, Ulysses straight resign'd
To soft affliction all his manly mind:
Before his eyes the purple vest he drew,
Industrious to conceal the falling dew:
But when the music paused, he ceased to shed
The flowing tear, and raised his drooping head:
And, lifting to the gods a goblet crown'd,
He pour'd a pure libation to the ground.

_Book IX._ Thus invited to speak, Ulysses, after introducing himself
and describing his island home, relates how, the ruin of Troy
completed, he and his men left the Trojan shores. Driven by winds to
Ismarus, they sacked the town, but, instead of sailing off immediately
with their booty as Ulysses urged, tarried there unti