Odyssey 6.186 · Book 6, lines 186–190
Nausicaa answers: Zeus deals fortune
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τὸν δʼ αὖ Ναυσικάα λευκώλενος ἀντίον ηὔδα·
Nausicaa — ξεῖνʼ, ἐπεὶ οὔτε κακῷ οὔτʼ ἄφρονι φωτὶ ἔοικας· Ζεὺς δʼ αὐτὸς νέμει ὄλβον Ὀλύμπιος ἀνθρώποισιν, ἐσθλοῖς ἠδὲ κακοῖσιν, ὅπως ἐθέλῃσιν, ἑκάστῳ· καί που σοὶ τάδʼ ἔδωκε, σὲ δὲ χρὴ τετλάμεν ἔμπης.
In turn white-armed Nausicaa answered him: Stranger, since you seem like neither a base nor a senseless man, Zeus the Olympian himself deals out prosperity to men, to good and bad alike, however he wishes, to each; and to you, somehow, he has given these things; and you must endure them all the same.
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The setting
White-armed Nausicaa, alone of her maids, has held her ground before the fearsome stranger. Now she replies to his supplication — first taking his measure, then setting his misfortune inside the will of Zeus.
A note on this passage
Nausicaa answers, and her first move is a judgment: this ragged, terrifying stranger looks like neither a base man nor a fool. Then she offers the theology that makes sense of his state — Zeus the Olympian alone deals out fortune, good and ill, to each as he wills; your hardships are heaven's portion, and there is nothing to do but bear them.
The poise is the point. A sheltered girl looks at a naked castaway and reads him rightly — he is no beggar by birth. And her closing counsel, σὲ δὲ χρὴ τετλάμεν, ‘you must endure,’ hands the stranger the very verb the poem keeps for him: this is πολύτλας Odysseus, ‘much-enduring,’ being told to endure by someone who cannot know his name.
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