Odyssey 6.52 · Book 6, lines 52–55
Mother at the hearth, father at the door
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ἡ μὲν ἐπʼ ἐσχάρῃ ἧστο σὺν ἀμφιπόλοισι γυναιξὶν ἠλάκατα στρωφῶσʼ ἁλιπόρφυρα· τῷ δὲ θύραζε ἐρχομένῳ ξύμβλητο μετὰ κλειτοὺς βασιλῆας ἐς βουλήν, ἵνα μιν κάλεον Φαίηκες ἀγαυοί.
She was sitting at the hearth with her handmaid women, spinning sea-purple wool; and she met her father as he went out the door, to join the famous kings at the council, to which the Phaeacian nobles were summoning him.
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The setting
Nausicaa comes upon her mother and father indoors. The queen sits spinning with her maids; the king, Alcinous, is on his way out to a council of the Phaeacian nobles.
A note on this passage
Nausicaa finds her parents in two poses that sum up their worlds. Her mother sits at the hearth among the maids, spinning purple wool — the domestic center of the house; her father is already at the door, on his way to the council of Phaeacian nobles, the public world. She catches him on the threshold.
The timing is the point. She goes to her father, since the cart and the leave are his to give, and reaches him at the one moment he is stepping out, so the request must be quick and light. Homer also lets the sea-purple wool sit in view: the very kind of fine cloth whose washing she is about to arrange.
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