Summary

In order to aid Odysseus, Athena enters the dream of the Phaeacian princess Nausicaa, disguised as Nausicaa’s best friend. She suggests that Nausicaa wash her clothes in the river in order to prepare for courtship. The next day, Nausicaa asks for a cart from her father, King Alcinous, and goes to the river with her maids to launder clothes. While the young women are drying their clothes, Odysseus, who is naked, overhears their mirth and approaches them. He considers hugging Nausicaa’s knees in supplication but ultimately decides to remain at a slight distance. He asks Nausicaa for assistance, and Athena makes him more attractive so that he will be more convincing. Nausicaa gives Odysseus directions to the palace and instructs him to ask for help from her mother, Queen Arete, but asks that he delay and let her travel there first, lest their appearance together draw too much attention. Odysseus waits and, after praying to Athena, leaves for the palace.

Analysis

The text verbalizes parts of Odysseus’s situational thought process. His constant suspicions and deliberations are intended to portray a quick, clever, and situationally aware mind. He deliberates whether he can really swim to shore at Scheria, whether he can safely sleep in the forest, and how to approach Nausicaa. Moreover, as the king and queen of Scheria, Alcinous and Arete, interrogate him, readers begin to see a kind of sly manipulation at work. Odysseus does not readily reveal his identity and only reveals a little of his past to make himself seem important and mysterious, and when asked about his clothes, he praises the princess’s kindness but also avoids offending her father’s hospitality by asserting that it was his own idea to arrive separately from Nausicaa.