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| Hans Erni, Demodokos singing |
Framing Book 8 are two songs by the blind poet Demodokos, both about the Trojan war. The first song (75–95), regarding a supposed quarrel between Odysseus and Achilles, makes Odysseus break down into tears. The second, recounting the ruse of the Trojan horse, comes in response to the rather intrusive request of Odysseus (485–93). (In-between is inset a third song, about the adulterous love of Ares and Aphrodite [266–366].)
Peculiarly, there is no other classical source for this purported quarrel – at best, it echoes a similar dispute between Achilles and Agamemnon at the outset of the Iliad.
And what is the point of the final song, in relation to the first?
One critic, Clifford Broeniman, has posited that "Odysseus needs to have his most famous deed recounted for all to hear. This subtle maneuvering is used by the stranger to gain a favorable reputation and, if need be, identify himself after such a glorifying story."
When we have a poem within a poem, or a play within a play, or a painting within a painting, we call this recursively embedded sequence a mise en abyme, French for "placed into abyss." The inset songs within Book 8 have been characterized by some scholars as a mise en abyme.