God · Character in Homer’s Odyssey
Ares
War god caught in the net
All speed, no patience; the slow smith's craft holds him fast.
The war god of the song Demodocus sings at the Phaeacian games: how he lay with golden Aphrodite in Hephaestus' own house, was pinned with her under the smith's invisible net, and was let up only when the gods had crowded the door to laugh. Grim in the war-stories, ridiculous in the song — the poem enjoys both.
Bonds
- Ares son of Zeus — war itself, little loved
- Ares loves Aphrodite — the affair the gods laughed at
- Hephaestus captor of Ares — the invisible net
Appears in
- Book VIII Festivals in Honor of Odysseus
- Book XI Visit of Odysseus to the Land of the Dead
- Book XIV Meeting of Odysseus and Eumaeus
- Book XV Return of Telemachus
Scenes
- Games Proposed — Book VIII. Alcinoüs proposes games for youths
- Hephaestus’s Snare — Book VIII. Hephaestus forges net to trap lovers
- Gods Gather to Laugh — Book VIII. Gods gather, laugh at trapped lovers
- Apollo, Hermes, Poseidon — Book VIII. Apollo teases Hermes, Poseidon pleads
- Ares and Aphrodite Freed — Book VIII. Hephaestus frees Ares and Aphrodite, who flee
- The Fall of Troy Sung — Book VIII. Demodocus sings ambush, sack of Troy
- Achilles’ Lament — Book XI. Achilles prefers poor life to death
- The Cretan’s Long Tale — Book XIV. Odysseus invents war, plunder, betrayal
- Eagle and Prophecy — Book XV. Helen reads the eagle omen as return