Odyssey 6.13 · Book 6, lines 13–16
The goddess in the ornate chamber
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τοῦ μὲν ἔβη πρὸς δῶμα θεά, γλαυκῶπις Ἀθήνη, νόστον Ὀδυσσῆι μεγαλήτορι μητιόωσα. βῆ δʼ ἴμεν ἐς θάλαμον πολυδαίδαλον, ᾧ ἔνι κούρη κοιμᾶτʼ ἀθανάτῃσι φυὴν καὶ εἶδος ὁμοίη,
To his house went the goddess, bright-eyed Athena, devising the homecoming of great-hearted Odysseus. She went into the richly-wrought chamber, where a girl slept, like the immortals in form and beauty,
Word by word
The setting
Athena goes to Alcinous's palace with a fixed aim — to secure Odysseus's return home. She enters the bedchamber of the king's daughter, who is asleep, beautiful as a goddess.
A note on this passage
Athena arrives at Alcinous's palace with her purpose named outright: she is ‘devising the homecoming’ of Odysseus. Whatever domestic sweetness follows, the poem tells us first that it is a move in the return-plot. She slips into an ornate bedroom where a girl lies asleep, as lovely as the deathless gods.
The key word sits first in its line — νόστον, ‘homecoming,’ the single word the whole epic turns on. It frames the girl before we even learn her name: Nausicaa enters the poem not yet as herself but as the instrument Athena has chosen. The tenderness is real, and it is also engineering — the goddess is arranging the meeting that will carry the hero home.
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