The four-stringed lyre of the aoidos. In the Great Hall it is the instrument through which the tale is opened in song. Book 1 already places a lyre in this house when Phemius sings; Book 8 names the phorminx in the hands of Demodocus. The constellation treats Homer as narrator-aoidos, so this object stands for the sung poem, not a museum loan and not a Real provenance row. The wood is hall equipment of song: worn, simple, and waiting when the listeners lean forward.
— Material culture —
A phorminx is the early Greek box-lyre of the singer: a wooden sound-box, two arms, a yoke, and typically four gut strings. It is not a later concert lyre and not a guitar. In the poem Phemius plays a lyre in Odysseus’s hall (Book 1) and Demodocus is given a phorminx in Scheria (Book 8). This relic is Lore — the constellation’s instrument of sung epic, not a claimed historical object of a biographical Homer.
Books (Butler): 1, 8
Epithet: The four-stringed lyre of the aoidos