1 There was a bard also to sing to them and play his lyre, while two tumblers went about performing in the midst of them when the man struck up with his tune.
2 Thus sang the bard, but Ulysses drew his purple mantle over his head and covered his face, for he was ashamed to let the Phaeacians see that he was weeping.
3 Meanwhile the bard began to sing the loves of Mars and Venus, and how they first began their intrigue in the house of Vulcan.
4 Thus sang the bard, and both Ulysses and the seafaring Phaeacians were charmed as they heard him.
5 A servant led in the favourite bard Demodocus, and set him in the midst of the company, near one of the bearing-posts supporting the cloister, that he might lean against it.
6 He is evidently in great trouble, so let the bard leave off, that we may all enjoy ourselves, hosts and guest alike.
7 And Ulysses answered, "King Alcinous, it is a good thing to hear a bard with such a divine voice as this man has."
8 To you others, however, who come here night after night to drink my choicest wine and listen to my bard, I would insist as follows.
9 They have with them a servant Medon, a bard, and two men who can carve at table.
10 He went on eating it while the bard was singing, and had just finished his dinner as he left off.
11 You will be sorry for it afterwards if you kill a bard who can sing both for gods and men as I can.
12 But Medon and the bard Phemius had now woke up, and came to them from the house of Ulysses.
13 It had even thrown its gleam, in the sufferer's bard extremity, across the verge of time.
The Scarlet Letter By Nathaniel HawthorneContext Highlight In XIII. ANOTHER VIEW OF HESTER 14 Her statesmen, bards and warriors raised.