The <I>Odyssey</I>

by Homer

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  dense and wrapped in each other. Promptly Odysseus

  crawled under. He made a wide bed with his own hands.

  Plenty of leaves had fallen around and were piled up,

  enough to shield two men or three, in the winter

  time too, whatever storm might be raging.

  So long-suffering, godlike Odysseus gazed on it gladly.

  He lay in the center, piling leaves on his body.

  The way a man might bank a firebrand in darkling

  embers far afield where neighbors are not close,

  saving a fire-seed, no need to light it from elsewhere:

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  Odysseus hid in the leaves that way and Athene

  poured sleep on his eyes. She freed him from hard work

  fast and from weariness: the Goddess covered his eyelids.

  BOOK 6 Laundry Friends

  A New City in a Far-Off Land

  So long-suffering, godlike Odysseus slept there,

  worn and wholly exhausted. However Athene

  went through Phaiakian country and came to their city.

  The people once had lived in Hupereia’s open

  ♦ dancing country close to the overprevailing Kuklops

  who harmed them often—the Kuklops were larger and stronger.

  But godlike Nausithoos rose in power and led them

  to homes in Skherie, far from bread-eating people.

  ♦ He walled their city around and built them their houses,

  raised shrines to the Gods and divided the farmland.

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  ♦ But then his fate downed him: he went into Aides’

  house and Alkinoos, counseled by Gods, now was their ruler.

  A Dream about Washing

  The gray-eyed Goddess Athene went to the palace,

  planning on great-hearted Odysseus’s way home.

  She entered the richly designed room where a daughter

  slept like a deathless Goddess, shapely and lovely,

  Nausikaa—great-hearted Alkinoos’s daughter.

  Two maids were sleeping nearby, flanking the doorposts,

  pretty as Graces. The doors gleamed and were closed tight

  but Athene, fast as a wind-breath, came to the bedside

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  and stood above the daughter’s face to address her,

  looking like Dumas’s daughter—the man was a shipwright.

  The girl was Nausikaa’s age, the joy of her own heart.

  Taking that form the gray-eyed Athene asked her:

  ♦ “Nausikaa, how could your mother make you so careless?

  Your clothes have a shiny glow but they’re lying uncared for.

  Marrying soon, you’ll need some beautiful clothing

  to wear yourself and present to those who attend you.

  Surely such things give rise among men to a good name.

  They’ll make your father and mother honored and happy.

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  Let’s go then, wash in the morning, soon as the dawn comes!

  I’ll go and help you myself, the sooner to dress you

  finely. You won’t remain a virgin much longer.

  Already the best young men in Phaiakian country

  have all come courting—your bloodline too is Phaiakian.

  Come on then, rouse your well-known father at daybreak

  to get a mule-cart ready. Loin-cloths and dresses

  and brightly colorful cloaks can be carried in that way.

  It’s far better to go there riding than walking:

  the washing places are very far from the city.”

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  A Higher, Radiant World

  Gray-eyed Athene spoke that way and she left her

  fast for Olumpos. They say the Gods’ thrones are forever

  there, hardly shaken by storm-winds, by pelting

  rain and no snow falls: there’s only the cloudless

  air and spread-out sky. A white radiance drifts down,

  happy Gods enjoying all their days where the glow-eyed

  Goddess Athene arrived after warning the young girl.

  A Mule-Cart

  Dawn now came on her gorgeous throne and awakened

  Nausikaa, known for her fine robes. Her dream had alarmed her:

  she made her way through the house to talk to her parents,

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  the mother and father she loved. She found them inside there,

  the lady sat by the hearth with maids who were helping

  to spin their sea-mauve wool, and then at the doorway

  she came on her father going to council with well-known

  lords who were called there now by high-born Phaiakians.

  She stood up close to her much-loved father and asked him,

  ♦ “My dear Dad, won’t you harness a mule-cart,

  the high one with well-rimmed wheels, to help me to carry

  our splendid clothes that are soiled to wash by the river?

  Surely it’s right for you, going to council

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  with high-ranked men, to have clean clothes on your body.

  The five sons you love, born in your great house—

  two are married, three are robust and unmarried—

  are always wanting to put clean clothes on their bodies

  and go out dancing. My heart cares about all this.”

  She stopped, too bashful to speak to her own father of blooming

  and marrying. Yet he sensed it all as he answered,

  “I won’t deny you the mules—or anything, daughter!

  Go on then: slaves will help you harness the mule-cart,

  the high one with well-rimmed wheels, topped with a clothes-box.”

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  Off to the Seashore

  He spoke that way, he gave commands and servants obeyed him.

  Outside they prepared a wagon, the mule-cart with good wheels:

  they led the mules up under to the wagon and yoked them.

  The daughter carried shining clothes from her bedroom

  and laid them down there, piled on the polished wagon.

  Her mother put the food on, all kinds to be suiting

  their spirits. She gave them meats and poured wine into goatskin

  sacks. Soon as her daughter mounted the wagon,

  her mother gave her softening olive oil in a golden

  flask to anoint herself and the women who helped her.

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  Holding a whip and the reins—they shone in the bright sun—

  the daughter lashed and drove the mules. Making a clatter,

  anxiously straining, they hauled clothes and the daughter,

  and not alone—handmaids joined her and went too.

  Laundry Time

  In time they came to the beautiful flow of a river.

  They found the perennial wash-pools, plenty of pretty

  water upwelling to clean the clothes that were badly

  dirtied. They soon unyoked the mules from the wagon

  and drove them along, down to the eddying water

  to graze on honey-sweet grass. Taking the clothing

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  in hand from the wagon, they brought it all to the dark pools

  and stamped it in wash-holes fast, racing each other.

  Soon as they washed and rinsed all of the dirt out,

  they spread each garment in turn right there on the seashore,

  where waves most often had washed pebbles on dry land.

  Then they washed, anointed their bodies with rich oil

  and gladly took some food on the bank of the river,

  waiting for laundry to dry in the glare of the sunlight.

  Ball-Game

  After enjoying their meal both princess and handmaids

  threw off their headbands and joined in a ball-game.

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  White-armed Nausikaa started them all in the dance-play,

  ♦ looking like Artemis rai
ning her arrows in mountains,

  racing through high Teugeton or Mount Erumanthos,

  taking her pleasure in deer on the run or in wild boar

  while Nymphs, the daughters of Zeus who carries the Aigis,

  play in the fields with her. Leto’s heart is delighted

  seeing Artemis hold her head much higher than all there,

  she’s known with ease, though all her Nymphs are so lovely.

  The unmarried virgin outshone her maids in the same way.

  The Frightening Stranger

  In time she was ready to go back home on the wagon,

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  to yoke the mules and fold the beautiful clothing,

  when gray-eyed Athene, the Goddess, thought of a new plan.

  Odysseus now might wake up, see this girl with the good face

  and then be led by the girl to Phaiakian men in the city.

  So now when the princess threw her ball to a handmaid,

  it missed the girl and flew in a swirl of the water—

  they called out loudly—and woke up godlike Odysseus.

  He sat up wondering, head and heart full of questions.

  “Look at me—what land and people now have I come to?

  Are men here overbearing, savage and unjust?

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  Or maybe they mind the Gods and are kindly to strangers.

  A sound just came of women’s voices around me—

  or Nymphs’—they hold the highest ranges of mountains,

  grassy plains, river sources and meadows.

  Or now I’m somehow close to the voices of people.

  Come on, then. I will look and learn for myself here.”

  So godlike Odysseus came out from under the bushes,

  breaking some shoots with his rugged hand from a leafy

  bush to cover his man’s genitals shyly.

  ♦ Yet he came like a mountain lion, sure of his power,

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  however rained on or wind-blown: smoldering vision

  bright in his head, he stalks a ram or a bullock,

  maybe a forest stag, or his belly commands him

  to enter a crowded fold and charge at a lamb there.

  Odysseus made for the finely braided girls in the same way

  to mix with them, bare as he was—he felt such a great need.

  Smeared with grime from the sea, he struck them as frightful:

  they ran to the jut-out beaches that way and this way.

  Only Alkinoos’s daughter stayed, helped by Athene,

  who made her mind bold: she took all fear from her body.

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  Nausikaa held her ground and Odysseus wondered

  whether to clasp her knees, this girl with the good face,

  or stand right there and pray to the girl with some soft words,

  ask her to show him to town and offer him clothing.

  Human or Goddess?

  So as he mulled the latter seemed to be better,

  to ask her with gentle words while standing a ways off—

  clasping her knees might rankle the mind of a young girl.

  Promptly he made a speech both gentle and clever.

  ♦ “I clasp your knees, my Lady. Are you divine or human?

  If you’re a Goddess holding the breadth of the heavens,

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  I’d say Artemis, yes, the daughter of great Zeus:

  in looks and height and form you two are a close match.

  Yet if you’re human, making a home on the good earth,

  your father and honored mother are blessed with you three times,

  your brothers are blessed three times. Surely their spirits

  are always warmed and happy because of your own self,

  watching you join a chorus and dance like a flower.

  But blessed in his heart beyond them all is that person

  who leads you, weighed with bride-gifts, right to his own house.

  I never saw such a human, not with my own eyes,

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  man or woman—I’m taken by wonder to see you!

  “One time I saw, near Apollo’s altar on Delos,

  a young date-palm, a shooting growth of such beauty.

  I’d gone that way with plenty of people behind me.

  The course would harm me, though, for sorrow was waiting.

  Yet I gazed in the same way, my heart was astonished

  a long time: such a tree had never grown from the broad earth.

  So young woman, I marvel and wonder, doubting and fearing

  to clasp your knees. But hard pain has beset me.

  Nothing Is Better or Stronger

  “Yesterday, after twenty days, I escaped from the wine-dark

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  sea. I was often carried by waves and a high wind

  far from Ogugie Island. Now some Power has thrown me

  down here, maybe to face more pain. I think it will not stop,

  not until the Gods have troubled me far more.

  Yet my Lady, pity me. Having suffered a great deal

  I come to you first now, knowing none of the other

  people who hold the land or towns in this country.