When they reached the water side
they went to the washing-cisterns, through which there ran at all
times enough pure water to wash any quantity of linen, no matter how
dirty. Here they unharnessed the mules and turned them out to feed on
the sweet juicy herbage that grew by the water side. They took the
clothes out of the wagon, put them in the water, and vied with one
another in treading them in the pits to get the dirt out. After they
had washed them and got them quite clean, they laid them out by the
sea side, where the waves had raised a high beach of shingle, and set
about washing themselves and anointing themselves with olive oil.
Then they got their dinner by the side of the stream, and waited for
the sun to finish drying the clothes. When they had done dinner they
threw off the veils that covered their heads and began to play at
ball, while Nausicaa sang for them. As the huntress Artemis goes
forth upon the mountains of Taygetus or Erymanthus to hunt wild boars
or deer, and the wood-nymphs, daughters of Aegis-bearing Zeus, take
their sport along with her (then is Leto proud at seeing her daughter
stand a full head taller than the others, and eclipse the loveliest
amid a whole bevy of beauties), even so did the girl outshine her
handmaids.
When it was time for them to
start home, and they were folding the clothes and putting them into
the wagon, Athena began to consider how Odysseus should wake up and
see the handsome girl who was to conduct him to the city of the
Phaeacians. The girl, therefore, threw a ball at one of the maids,
which missed her and fell into deep water. On this they all shouted,
and the noise they made woke Odysseus, who sat up in his bed of
leaves and began to wonder what it might all be.
"Alas," said he to himself, "what
kind of people have I come amongst? Are they cruel, savage, and
uncivilized [not dikaios], or hospitable and endowed
with a god-fearing noos? I seem to hear the voices of young
women, and they sound like those of the nymphs that haunt
mountaintops, or springs of rivers and meadows of green grass. At any
rate I am among a race of men and women. Let me try if I cannot
manage to get a look at them."
As he said this he crept from
under his bush, and broke off a bough covered with thick leaves to
hide his nakedness. He looked like some lion of the wilderness that
stalks about exulting in his strength and defying both wind and rain;
his eyes glare as he prowls in quest of oxen, sheep, or deer, for he
is famished, and will dare break even into a well-fenced homestead,
trying to get at the sheep - even such did Odysseus seem to the young
women, as he drew near to them all naked as he was, for he was in
great want. On seeing one so unkempt and so begrimed with salt water,
the others scampered off along the spits that jutted out into the
sea, but the daughter of Alkinoos stood firm, for Athena put courage
into her heart and took away all fear from her. She stood right in
front of Odysseus, and he doubted whether he should go up to her,
throw himself at her feet, and embrace her knees as a suppliant, or
stay where he was and entreat her to give him some clothes and show
him the way to the town. In the end he deemed it best to entreat her
from a distance in case the girl should take offense at his coming
near enough to clasp her knees, so he addressed her in honeyed and
persuasive language.
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