"Why, mother,"
poised Telemachus put in sharply, "why deny
our devoted bard the chance to entertain us
any way the spirit stirs him on?
Bards are not to blame –
Zeus is to blame. He deals to each and every
laborer on this earth whatever doom he pleases.
Why fault the bard if he sings the Argives’ harsh fate?"
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 1, lines 397-403. When Penelope asks Phemius to stop singing about the Achaeans and the Trojan War, Telemachus jumps in to challenge this. The Bard is not to blame for the cruel fates of those who went to war, he asserts, but Zeus is. In The Odyssey the gods are credited with causing a lot of the misfortunes of humans.