Odyssey 6.255 · Book 6, lines 255–257
Rise, stranger, and I will bring you in
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Nausicaa — ὄρσεο δὴ νῦν, ξεῖνε πόλινδʼ ἴμεν ὄφρα σε πέμψω πατρὸς ἐμοῦ πρὸς δῶμα δαΐφρονος, ἔνθα σέ φημι πάντων Φαιήκων εἰδησέμεν ὅσσοι ἄριστοι.
Rouse yourself now, stranger, to go to the city, so that I may escort you to my wise father's house, where I tell you you shall know all who are noblest of the Phaeacians.
Word by word
The setting
Nausicaa begins her instructions to Odysseus. She offers to lead him into the town and to her father Alcinous's house, where the leading Phaeacians gather.
A note on this passage
Nausicaa opens her instructions. Rise, stranger, and come to the town; she will bring him to her father's house, where he will meet all the best of the Phaeacians. It is a generous offer, plainly made.
What she is handing him is access. A shipwrecked stranger's whole hope is to reach the right house and the right people, and she promises exactly that — the wise king's hall and its assembled nobles. The escort is not merely kindness; it is the machinery by which a nameless castaway becomes a guest with a claim. She knows the value of what she offers.
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