Odyssey 6.282 · Book 6, lines 282–284
'She scorns her own suitors'
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βέλτερον, εἰ καὐτή περ ἐποιχομένη πόσιν εὗρεν ἄλλοθεν· ἦ γὰρ τούσδε γʼ ἀτιμάζει κατὰ δῆμον Φαίηκας, τοί μιν μνῶνται πολέες τε καὶ ἐσθλοί.
Better, if she herself had gone out and found a husband elsewhere; for truly she slights these men here in the district, the Phaeacians who woo her, many and noble.
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The setting
The gossip reaches its sting: the imagined townsman concludes that Nausicaa must be rejecting her local Phaeacian suitors — many of them, and highborn — in favor of a stranger from outside.
A note on this passage
The imagined verdict lands as an insult to the whole town: better she had chosen a husband among her own, for clearly she looks down on the Phaeacian suitors, though they are many and of good birth. The complaint is communal pride — a princess owes her marriage to the men of her own people.
Nausicaa, of course, has invented all of it. She is arguing with a crowd that has said nothing, rehearsing the charge of scorn before anyone can make it. The passage quietly shows how marriage in this world is not a private choice but a public account owed to the community — and how sharply a clever girl already feels that weight.
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