Nausicaa: whose generosity, mingled with discretion
filled her parents with delight, as Ulysses in eloquent phrases
adorned and commended her virtues. But Alcinous, humanely considering
that the troubles which his guest had undergone required rest, as well
as refreshment by food, dismissed him early in the evening to his
chamber; where in a magnificent apartment Ulysses found a smoother
bed, but not a sounder repose, than he had enjoyed the night before,
sleeping upon leaves which he had scraped together in his necessity.

CHAPTER VII

_The songs of Demodocus.--The convoy home.--The mariners transformed
to stone.--The young shepherd._

When it was day-light, Alcinous caused it to be proclaimed by the
heralds about the town, that there was come to the palace a stranger,
shipwrecked on their coast, that in mien and person resembled a god:
and inviting all the chief people of the city to come and do honour to
the stranger.

The palace was quickly filled with guests, old and young, for whose
cheer, and to grace Ulysses more, Alcinous made a kingly feast with
banquetings and music. Then Ulysses being seated at a table next the
king and queen, in all men's view; after they had feasted, Alcinous
ordered Demodocus, the court-singer, to be called to sing some song
of the deeds of heroes, to charm the ear of his guest. Demodocus came
and reached his harp, where it hung between two pillars of silver: and
then the blind singer, to whom, in recompense of his lost sight, the
muses had given an inward discernment, a soul and a voice to excite
the hearts of men and gods to delight, began in grave and solemn
strains to sing the glories of men highliest famed. He chose a poem,
whose subject was, The stern Strife stirred up between Ulysses and
great Achilles, as at a banquet sacred to the gods in dreadful
language they expressed their difference; while Agamemnon sat rejoiced
in soul to hear those Grecians jar: for the oracle in Pytho had told
him, that the period of their wars in Troy should then be, when the
kings of Greece, anxious to arrive at the wished conclusion, should
fall to strife, and contend which must end the war, force or
stratagem.

This brave contention he expressed so to the life, in the very words
which they both used in the quarrel, as brought tears into the eyes of
Ulysses at the remembrance of past passages of his life, and he held
his large purple weed before his face to conceal it. Then craving a
cu