Odyssey 6.244 · Book 6, lines 244–246
Would that such a man were called my husband
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αἲ γὰρ ἐμοὶ τοιόσδε πόσις κεκλημένος εἴη ἐνθάδε ναιετάων, καί οἱ ἅδοι αὐτόθι μίμνειν. ἀλλὰ δότʼ, ἀμφίπολοι, ξείνῳ βρῶσίν τε πόσιν τε.
Would that such a man might be called my husband, dwelling here, and that it might please him to remain here. But give the stranger, O maids, food and drink.
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The setting
The end of Nausicaa's speech to her maids. She voices a wish about the transformed stranger — then breaks off into the plain business of hospitality.
A note on this passage
The princess says the thing directly: would that a man like this might be called her husband and choose to stay. Then she turns at once to practical hospitality — give the stranger food and drink.
The wish is real but carefully shaped. She does not say she wants him but ‘such a man,’ and wraps it in the softening mood Greek keeps for prayers and impossibilities. The reader hears what she half-hears in herself, then watches her cover it instantly with an order to the maids. It is poise doing the work of concealment — over a marriage the poem has already quietly ruled out.
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Odyssey 6.244 — The Great Library Project interlinear edition · greatlibraryproject.com/book/odyssey/6.244/