Odysseus among the Phæacians


I

The land on which Odysseus had thus been cast like a piece of broken
wreckage was called Phæacia, and derived its name from the Phæacians,
a race of famous mariners, who had settled there some fifty years
before, having been driven from their former seat by the Cyclopes, a
savage tribe, who dwelt on their borders. The Phæacians were an
unwarlike people, and being in no condition to resist the fierce
assaults of these lawless neighbours, they abandoned their homes and
built a new city on a little peninsula, connected with the mainland by
a narrow isthmus. Defended by strong walls they were now safe against
all attacks, and they soon grew rich and prosperous in the exercise of
a thriving trade.

At this time the king of the Phæacians was Alcinous, who had a fair
daughter, named Nausicaä. On the night when Odysseus lay couched in
his bed of leaves Nausicaä was sleeping in her bower, and with her
were two handmaids, whose beds were set on either side of the door.
And in a dream she seemed to hear one of her girlish friends, the
daughter of a neighbouring house, speaking to her thus: "Nausicaä, why
art thou grown so careless as to suffer all the raiment in thy
father's house to remain unwashen, when thy bridal day is so near?
Wouldst thou be wedded in soiled attire, and have all thy friends clad
unseemly, to put thee to shame? These are a woman's cares, by which
she wins a good report among men, and gladdens her mother's heart.
Arise, therefore, at break of day, and beg thy father to let harness