Odyssey 6.304 · Book 6, lines 304–307
The queen at the hearth
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ὦκα μάλα μεγάροιο διελθέμεν, ὄφρʼ ἂν ἵκηαι μητέρʼ ἐμήν· ἡ δʼ ἧσται ἐπʼ ἐσχάρῃ ἐν πυρὸς αὐγῇ, ἠλάκατα στρωφῶσʼ ἁλιπόρφυρα, θαῦμα ἰδέσθαι, κίονι κεκλιμένη· δμωαὶ δέ οἱ εἵατʼ ὄπισθεν.
pass very quickly through the hall, until you reach my mother; she sits at the hearth in the firelight, spinning sea-purple yarn, a wonder to behold, leaning against a pillar, and her handmaids sit behind her.
Word by word
The setting
Nausicaa tells Odysseus how to move once inside the palace: straight through the great hall to her mother, Arete, whom she now describes seated by the fire at her spinning.
A note on this passage
The instruction becomes a portrait. Odysseus is to cross the hall quickly and go to Arete, and the poem pauses to show her: at the hearth, in the firelight, spinning sea-purple wool against a pillar, her maids ranged behind her. It is a still, domestic image at the center of the house.
The detail that carries weight is the hearth. In this world the hearth is where a suppliant kneels; to reach Arete there is to reach the one seat of mercy in the household. That the queen, not the king, holds this place is the surprise the next lines will press. Homer frames her first as a woman at ordinary work, and only slowly lets us feel how much power sits at that fire.
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