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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,
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,
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.