175 
When they of hunger had pluck’d out the sting,
The lusty suitors’ thoughts converted were
To dancing, and to hear the minstrel sing,
Sports these are consecrated to good cheer.
To Phemius, the minstrel, that was by,
180 
Unwillingly, forc’d by th’ unruly throng,
They brought a cittern, and he presently
Began to play, and then to sing a song.

[150] Now after the wooers had put from them the desire of food and drink,
their hearts turned to other things,
to song and to dance; for these things are the crown of a feast.
And a herald put the beautiful lyre in the hands
of Phemius, who sang perforce among the wooers;
[155] and he struck the chords in prelude to his sweet lay.