Book 6 · Book Guide
Odysseus has washed ashore in the land of the Phaeacians, a people who live apart at the edge of the sea and are great sailors. While he sleeps, Athena visits the young princess Nausicaa in a dream and nudges her to go wash the family’s clothes at the river. When the girls’ shouts over a lost ball wake Odysseus, he comes out of the bushes, naked and crusted with salt, and frightens them all except Nausicaa, who stands her ground.
With careful, flattering, respectful words, Odysseus begs her for help. She takes pity on him, has her attendants feed, bathe, and clothe him, and Athena makes him look handsome. Nausicaa then tells him how to reach her father’s palace and win over her mother, the queen, but warns him to follow at a distance to avoid the gossip of the townspeople. Odysseus waits in a sacred grove and prays to Athena.
Nausicaa taking the palace wash to the river isn’t drudgery — it’s estate management. Fine woven cloth was serious wealth, and keeping it bright was work worth a princess’s supervision, with a wagonload of attendants, a picnic, and a day at the washing pools. Athena’s nudge gives it a second purpose: Nausicaa is at marrying age, and clean linen is what a wedding needs. That’s the joke and the sweetness of the scene — she thinks she’s preparing for a husband, and instead she finds a naked, salt-crusted stranger who needs saving.
The Phaeacians live at the edge of the world, halfway between fairyland and Greece. They’re kin to the gods, they don’t fight wars, and their ships are magic — the best sailors alive. In the poem’s map they’re the last stop: after the monsters and goddesses of the deep sea, Odysseus lands here, in a country that’s still enchanted but almost human, and from here he’ll be carried home to plain, real Ithaca. They’re also the poem’s model hosts — everything the suitors are not.
Watch what Odysseus does with his one asset. He’s naked, starving, and terrifying to look at — so he stands at a careful distance and gives the most graceful speech in the poem: he compares the girl to Artemis, marvels like a pilgrim, blesses the marriage she’s been daydreaming about, and asks only for a rag and directions. Homer’s audience would have savored every move. Stripped of ships, crew, treasure, and even clothes, the man still has his wits — and they’re enough.
While Odysseus sleeps, Athena goes to the Phaeacian city and slips into the bedroom of the princess Nausicaa. Taking the shape of a friend her own age, she gently scolds the girl for leaving the laundry undone with her wedding day approaching, and tells her to ask for a wagon and go wash the clothes at dawn.
At dawn Nausicaa goes to her parents. Too shy to mention her own wedding, she asks her father for the mule wagon so she can wash the family’s clothes at the river. He understands more than she says and gladly grants it. Her mother packs food, wine, and oil for the trip.
The girls drive to the river, wash the clothes in the pools, and spread them to dry. Then they bathe, eat, and play ball, with Nausicaa leading them, as lovely among her attendants as the goddess Artemis among her nymphs.
As they are about to head home, Athena makes the ball fly wide into the river, and the girls cry out. The shout wakes Odysseus. He wonders what kind of people live here, savage or kind, and decides to go find out for himself.
Odysseus breaks off a leafy branch to cover himself and comes out of the bushes, filthy with salt and wild-looking, like a hungry mountain lion. The attendants scatter in fright. Only Nausicaa stands her ground, for Athena has put courage in her heart.
Odysseus decides not to grab her knees, which might frighten her, and instead speaks from a distance with gentle, clever words. He praises her beauty, wondering whether she is a goddess, tells her he is a shipwrecked wanderer who has just escaped the sea, and begs for a scrap of clothing and directions to the town, wishing her a happy marriage in return.
Nausicaa answers kindly: he seems a good man, and the gods send fortune as they please. She names her people and her father, calls back her frightened attendants, and reminds them that strangers and beggars come from Zeus. She orders the girls to feed the stranger and let him wash in the river.
Odysseus asks the girls to stand back so he can wash alone, ashamed to be naked before them. He scrubs off the salt and rubs on oil, and Athena makes him taller and more handsome, his hair curling like hyacinth. Nausicaa, struck by the change, tells her attendants she could wish for such a man as a husband.
Nausicaa packs up and tells Odysseus how to reach the palace, but warns him not to walk into town beside her, to avoid spiteful gossip. He should wait in a grove sacred to Athena, then go on alone, enter the palace, walk past the king, and clasp the knees of the queen, her mother, whose goodwill is the surest way home.
The princess drives back toward the city while Odysseus follows on foot. At sunset he reaches the sacred grove and prays to Athena to let the Phaeacians receive him kindly. Athena hears him but does not yet appear, still wary of her uncle Poseidon’s anger.
A guide to our plain-English translation of Book 6. Read the full book →
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