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By and by morning came and woke
Nausicaa, who began wondering about her dream; she therefore went to
the other end of the house to tell her father and mother all about
it, and found them in their own room. Her mother was sitting by the
fireside spinning her purple yarn with her maids around her, and she
happened to catch her father just as he was going out to attend a
meeting of the town council, which the Phaeacian aldermen had
convened. She stopped him and said:
"Papa dear, could you manage to
let me have a good big wagon? I want to take all our dirty clothes to
the river and wash them. You are the chief man here, so it is only
right that you should have a clean shirt when you attend meetings of
the council. Moreover, you have five sons at home, two of them
married, while the other three are good-looking bachelors; you know
they always like to have clean linen when they go to a dance
[khoros], and I have been thinking about all
this."
She did not say a word about her
own wedding, for she did not like to, but her father knew and said,
"You shall have the mules, my love, and whatever else you have a mind
for. Be off with you, and the men shall get you a good strong wagon
with a body to it that will hold all your clothes."
On this he gave his orders to the
servants, who got the wagon out, harnessed the mules, and put them
to, while the girl brought the clothes down from the linen room and
placed them on the wagon. Her mother prepared her a basket of
provisions with all sorts of good things, and a goat skin full of
wine; the girl now got into the wagon, and her mother gave her also a
golden cruse of oil, that she and her women might anoint themselves.
Then she took the whip and reins and lashed the mules on, whereon
they set off, and their hoofs clattered on the road. They pulled
without flagging, and carried not only Nausicaa and her wash of
clothes, but the maids also who were with her.
Homer. The Odyssey. Rendered into English prose for the use of those who cannot read the original. Samuel Butler. Based on public domain edition, revised by Timothy Power and Gregory Nagy. A. C. Fifield, London. 1900 (?).
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