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Nausicaa is playing ball with her companions by the river after washing her wedding clothes:
But now, when she was ready once more to harness
the mules, and fold the splendid clothing, and start on the way home,
then the grey-eyed goddess Athene thought what to do next;
how Odysseus should awake, and see the well-favoured young girl,
and she should be his guide to the city of the Phaiakians.
Now the princess threw the ball toward one handmaiden,
and missed the girl, and the ball went into the swirling water,
and they all cried aloud, and noble Odysseus wakened
and sat up and began pondering in his heart and his spirit:
"Ah me, what are these people whose land I have come to this time,
and are they violent and savage, and without justice,
or hospitable to strangers, with a godly mind? See now
how an outcry of young women echoes about me,
of nymphs, who keep the sudden and sheer high mountain places
and springs of the rivers and grass of the meadows, or am I truly
in the neighbourhood of human people I can converse with?
But come now, I myself shall see what I can discover."
So speaking, great Odysseus came from under his thicket,
and from the dense foliage with his heavy hand he broke off
a leafy branch to cover his body and hide his male parts,
and went in the confidence of his strength, like some hill-kept lion,
who advances, though he is rained on and blown by the wind, and both eyes
kindle; he goes out after cattle or sheep, or it may be
deer in the wilderness, and his belly is urgent upon him
to get inside of a close steading and go for the sheepflocks.
So Odysseus was ready to face young girls with well-ordered
hair, naked though he was, for the need was on him; and yet
he appeared terrifying to them, all crusted with dry spray,
and they scattered one way and another down the jutting beaches.
Only the daughter of Alkinoos stood fast, for Athene
put courage in her heart, and took the fear from her body,
and she stood her ground and faced him... |
