And Theon replied: You say just nothing, sir; for Aristotle in the same book affirms that those that wash in the sea, if they stand in the fresh sun, are sooner dried than those that wash in the fresh streams. It is true, I answered, he says so; but I hope that Homer asserting the contrary will, by you especially, be more easily believed; for Ulysses (as he writes) after his shipwreck meeting Nausicaa,
A frightful sight, and with the salt besmeared,
said to her maidens,
Retire a while, till I have washed my skin.
And when he had leaped into the river,
He from his head did scour the foaming sea.1
The poet knew very well what happens in such a case; for when those that come wet out of the sea stand in the sun, the subtilest and lightest parts suddenly exhale, but the salt and rough particles stick upon the body in a crust, till they are washed away by the fresh water of a spring.
