In the morning Alcinous holds an assembly, and Athena, disguised as a herald, rouses the townspeople to come and see the stranger, whom she makes look taller and more impressive. Alcinous orders a ship with fifty-two of the best young oarsmen to be made ready for his guest's journey and invites the lords to a feast at the palace. The blind bard Demodocus is led in, a man whom the Muse loved greatly but gave both good and evil: she took his sight but gave him the gift of sweet song. He sings of a quarrel between Odysseus and Achilles at a feast during the Trojan War. Hearing it, Odysseus pulls his purple cloak over his head and weeps in secret. Only Alcinous, sitting beside him, notices, and he tactfully calls for the athletic games to begin.
The Phaeacian youths compete in running, wrestling, jumping, discus, and boxing. Then the king's son Laodamas politely invites the stranger to compete. Odysseus declines, saying he is too burdened by sorrow. But a young man named Euryalus insults him, saying he looks like a greedy merchant captain who cares only about cargo and profit, not a real athlete. Odysseus is stung. He answers that the gods do not give every gift to every man: one may be handsome but foolish, another plain but eloquent. Euryalus has good looks but an empty mind.
Without even taking off his cloak, Odysseus seizes a discus heavier than any the Phaeacians have used and hurls it far beyond all their marks. Athena, in disguise, measures the throw and declares that no one can match it. Odysseus then challenges anyone to compete in boxing, wrestling, running, or archery — except Laodamas, his host, since fighting one's host would be foolish. He boasts that only Philoctetes surpassed him with the bow at Troy, though he would not compete with heroes of the past like Heracles. Alcinous smooths things over. The Phaeacians, he admits, are not the best boxers or wrestlers, but they are fast runners and excellent sailors, and they love feasts, music, dancing, changes of clothes, warm baths, and bed. He calls for the dancers to show their skill.
Demodocus then sings a lighter song about the love affair of Ares and Aphrodite, who was married to the lame smith god Hephaestus. Warned by the Sun, Hephaestus forged a net of invisible chains and fixed it around his bed. When the lovers lay down together, they were trapped, and Hephaestus called the gods to witness. The male gods laughed at the scene, and Poseidon persuaded Hephaestus to free them in exchange for a promise of payment. Afterwards the young men dance and play an acrobatic ball game, and Odysseus praises them. Alcinous proposes that each of the twelve lords give the stranger gifts of clothing and gold, and Euryalus apologizes and presents him with a bronze sword with a silver hilt.
Before the evening feast, Nausicaa meets Odysseus by a pillar and asks him to remember her, since she saved his life. He promises to honor her like a goddess all his days at home. At dinner, Odysseus sends Demodocus a choice piece of meat and asks him to sing of the wooden horse, which Epeius built with Athena's help and Odysseus led into Troy. Demodocus sings of the Greeks bursting out of the horse and sacking the city, and of Odysseus fighting at the house of Deiphobus. Odysseus weeps like a woman throwing herself on the body of her husband who has died defending his city, as the enemies drag her away into slavery. Again Alcinous notices. He stops the song and finally asks the stranger to tell his name, his homeland, and why he weeps at the story of Troy.
