In book 8 of the Odyssey, Odysseus is a guest of the Phaeacians, a mythical people renowned for their knowledge of ships and the sea. In the extract below, a festival that involves athletic games, dancing, and song, the poet Demodocus (“the minstrel” of the opening line) entertains the assembled guests by reciting the myth of how Hephaestus caught his wife Aphrodite in their marriage bed…