Odyssey 6.211 · Book 6, lines 211–213
The maids obey and seat him in the shelter
Read the full text in our reader
ὣς ἔφαθʼ, αἱ δʼ ἔσταν τε καὶ ἀλλήλῃσι κέλευσαν, κὰδ δʼ ἄρʼ Ὀδυσσῆʼ εἷσαν ἐπὶ σκέπας, ὡς ἐκέλευσεν Ναυσικάα θυγάτηρ μεγαλήτορος Ἀλκινόοιο·
So she spoke, and they halted and urged one another on, and seated Odysseus in the shelter, as Nausicaa had ordered, daughter of great-hearted Alcinous.
Word by word
The setting
Nausicaa has just steadied her frightened maids, telling them the shipwrecked stranger has come under Zeus's protection and must be fed and bathed. Here they carry out her command on the riverbank.
A note on this passage
Nausicaa's order is obeyed at once. The maids, who had scattered when the naked stranger appeared, check their flight, steady one another, and set Odysseus down in the sheltered spot, exactly as their mistress told them. The poem gives her full title — daughter of great-hearted Alcinous — as the authority behind the command.
The quiet thing here is the reach of a young girl's word. She is unmarried, out on a laundry errand, yet grown servants move at her say-so and a hero is placed where she wills. The household machinery of hospitality runs through her, and the naming formula quietly reminds us whose daughter she is — the weight of the king's house standing behind the princess on the sand.
Read the full commentary — and tap any word for its dictionary entry — in the interlinear reader.
Open Odyssey 6.211 in the full reader
Always open passages in the reader
From the Great Library
You are reading a page of the Odyssey — the whole book is free in our interlinear reader.
The Great Library Project presses the classics in their original languages, glossed word by word — free to read, always. Browse the whole library.
Also on our shelves:
Odyssey 6.211 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/6.211/