Homer’sThe Odyssey

While Odysseus sleeps under his pile of olive leaves, naked and half-dead on the coast of Scheria, Athena goes to work. She enters the city of the Phaeacians, finds the palace of King Alcinous, and slips into the bedroom of his daughter.

Nausicaä is sleeping. Athena takes the shape of her friend — the daughter of a ship captain — and stands at her head. Nausicaä, why are you so lazy? Your wedding will come soon. Your clothes are lying unwashed. Take them to the river in the morning. Ask your father for a wagon and mules.

When dawn comes, Nausicaä wakes remembering the dream. She goes to her father and asks for the wagon — but she is too embarrassed to mention marriage. She says the clothes need washing. Alcinous smiles. He understands.

The wagon is loaded with bright clothes, a basket of food, a goatskin of wine, and a golden flask of olive oil for bathing. Nausicaä takes the reins, and her handmaidens walk alongside. They drive down to the river mouth by the sea.

They wash the clothes in the river pools, trampling them with their feet, then spread them on the beach rocks to dry in the sun. While the clothes dry, they bathe in the river, rub themselves with olive oil, and eat lunch on the grass.

Then they play ball. Homer compares Nausicaä to Artemis playing with her nymphs on the mountain slopes — taller, more beautiful, unmistakable among her companions. She throws the ball to one of the girls. It goes wide. It falls into the deep swirling water.

The girls scream.

And that scream wakes Odysseus.

He has been sleeping under his pile of leaves, hidden like an ember banked under ash. He sits up and thinks: Where am I? Are these people savages or civilised? That sounded like girls — nymphs of the springs, perhaps? He breaks off a thick, leafy branch to cover himself — he has nothing else — and pushes through the undergrowth.

He came out like a mountain lion, wind-beaten and rain-soaked, his eyes blazing, going after cattle or sheep or wild deer — his belly drives him on.

The girls see him and run screaming in every direction. Caked in sea-salt, naked except for the branch, wild-eyed — he looks like a monster.

Only one person stays. Nausicaä does not run. Athena puts courage in her heart, and she stands her ground.

Now Odysseus faces a problem that requires all his cunning. He needs this girl’s help. He is naked, filthy, and terrifying. The normal form of Greek supplication is to clasp the person’s knees. But if he touches her, she will run. So instead he stands at a distance and speaks.

What comes out of his mouth is one of the most famous passages in all of Western literature.

Odysseus speaks from where he stands. He asks: Are you a goddess or a mortal? If a goddess, you must be Artemis — your height, your beauty, your bearing. If mortal — three times blessed are your father and mother, and three times blessed the man who wins you as his bride.

Then the image that has survived three thousand years:

“I once saw something like you. In Delos, beside the altar of Apollo, a young palm tree shooting up. I stared at it a long time, amazed, for I had never seen so beautiful a thing growing from the earth. And the wonder I felt then is the wonder I feel now, looking at you.”

He does not say she is beautiful. He says she reminds him of a tree — a living thing, rooted and growing, that struck him silent with awe on a holy island. It is specific. It is strange. It is the most disarming thing a filthy naked castaway has ever said to a princess, and it works.

Nausicaä calls her handmaidens back. Come here, you cowards. This man is no enemy. He is a wanderer, and strangers and beggars come from Zeus. Give him food and clothing and wash him in the river.

The handmaidens bring food, wine, and clothing. Odysseus bathes himself in the river — he refuses to let the girls wash him, out of modesty. When he emerges, Athena makes him taller and more handsome, thickening his hair like hyacinth clusters. Nausicaä turns to her handmaidens and whispers:

“I wish my husband could be a man like this, and that he would choose to stay here.”

She gives him careful instructions. Follow the wagon to the city, but stop before they reach the walls. People will talk if they see her with a strange man. Who is this tall, handsome foreigner with Nausicaä? Is this her husband? Did she find him on the beach? She cannot afford the gossip.

Instead, he should wait in a grove of poplars sacred to Athena, just outside the walls. When enough time has passed, he should enter the city, find the palace, walk past Alcinous, and go straight to the queen. If Arete looks on him with favour, he will get home.

Arrange the steps of Odysseus’s approach in the order Nausicaä instructs.

Nausicaä drives the wagon ahead. Odysseus follows at a distance, then sits in the grove of Athena. And there, for the first time in the poem, he prays not for survival but for welcome.

“Hear me, Athena. You did not hear me when Poseidon wrecked me. Grant me now what I ask — that the Phaeacians receive me with kindness and with pity.”

Athena hears. But she does not yet show herself. Poseidon is still watching.

Did you follow the shore?

Five questions from the river, the beach, and the road to the city.