Odyssey 6.241 · Book 6, lines 241–243
Before, unsightly; now, like the gods
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Φαιήκεσσʼ ὅδʼ ἀνὴρ ἐπιμίσγεται ἀντιθέοισι· πρόσθεν μὲν γὰρ δή μοι ἀεικέλιος δέατʼ εἶναι, νῦν δὲ θεοῖσιν ἔοικε, τοὶ οὐρανὸν εὐρὺν ἔχουσιν.
This man consorts with the godlike Phaeacians; for before he seemed to me to be unsightly, but now he resembles the gods, who hold the wide heaven.
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The setting
Still speaking to her maids, Nausicaa reappraises the stranger she found on the shore. A moment before he had crawled from the bushes filthy and terrifying; Athena has since poured grace over him.
A note on this passage
Nausicaa finishes describing the stranger to her maids. A moment ago he crawled from the bushes filthy and frightening; now she says he looks like the gods who hold the wide sky. The judgment is swift and total, made openly to her attendants.
The change she praises is not really his. Athena has just poured grace over Odysseus — taller, his hair curling — and Nausicaa reads that god-given surface as the man himself. It is how the poem's world works: beauty is a sign the gods send, and a princess is right to notice it, even if she cannot know its source.
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