Odyssey 6.236 · Book 6, lines 236–238
Radiant on the shore, and Nausicaa marvels
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ἕζετʼ ἔπειτʼ ἀπάνευθε κιὼν ἐπὶ θῖνα θαλάσσης, κάλλεϊ καὶ χάρισι στίλβων· θηεῖτο δὲ κούρη. δή ῥα τότʼ ἀμφιπόλοισιν ἐυπλοκάμοισι μετηύδα·
Then he sat down, having gone off apart on the seashore, gleaming with beauty and with grace; and the girl gazed. Then to the fair-tressed handmaids she spoke:
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The setting
Transformed, Odysseus withdraws to sit by himself at the water's edge. The princess who a moment ago faced a terrifying castaway now cannot take her eyes off him — and turns to speak to her maids.
A note on this passage
His transformation done, Odysseus goes off and settles alone at the edge of the sea, shining. Nausicaa watches him, held. Then she turns and begins to address her handmaids.
The reversal is the whole point. Only moments before, this was a naked, brine-caked figure lunging from the bushes, and the girls scattered in terror. Now a man gleaming with a goddess's grace sits on the sand, and the princess cannot look away. The single clause 'the girl gazed' carries the tenderness and the comedy of the book at once — her plain wonder, and the first stir of the marriage the poem keeps raising to the light and then gently setting down.
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