Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Demodocus.
The gallery
Ulysses at the Court of Alcinous
Francesco Hayez, 1814–1815
Hayez's Capodimonte canvas stages Odyssey 8: the blind Phaeacian bard Demodocus sings of Troy while Odysseus covers his face in tears before Alcinous' court. The Romantic history painting makes the Muse's favorite aoidos the emotional engine of recognition — song that wounds the hero into revealing himself.
Demodocus Singing to the Phaeacians
John Flaxman, 1810
Flaxman's outline illustration for the Odyssey shows Demodocus with his harp among the Phaeacians as Odysseus listens — the blind minstrel whose three songs (Achilles and Odysseus, Ares and Aphrodite, the wooden horse) structure the Scherian books.
On screen
L'Odissea
Franco Rossi
Rossi's Odyssey keeps the Phaeacian court and its singer — Demodocus' lays that make Odysseus weep before he names himself.
The Odyssey
Andrei Konchalovsky
Konchalovsky's Scheria includes the court singer whose Trojan songs unmask the guest — Demodocus as the Odyssey's poet within the poem.