Fractured Odysseus

Why does Odysseus weep? Seated as a guest of the Phaeacians, the wandering hero in disguise is treated to a feast, followed by entertainment: a bard regaling the audience with the story of Trojan War. As the singer tells of Odysseus’s heroism and his creation of the fabled wooden horse, the Phaeacian king Alcinous notices that his guest (in Daniel Mendelsohn’s translation) has “dissolved into tears that drenched the cheeks beneath his lids. Just as a woman would weep while embracing a beloved husband.” Stopping the bard, Alcinous proclaims of Odysseus that “some terrible anguish must have overwhelmed his heart”—but what? Is it grief for his fallen comrades? Longing for his home Ithaca, for his wife and son? Or horror at what he witnessed at Troy?