Odyssey 7.311 · Book 7, lines 311–316
Would that you were my son-in-law
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αἲ γάρ, Ζεῦ τε πάτερ καὶ Ἀθηναίη καὶ Ἄπολλον, τοῖος ἐὼν οἷός ἐσσι, τά τε φρονέων ἅ τʼ ἐγώ περ, παῖδά τʼ ἐμὴν ἐχέμεν καὶ ἐμὸς γαμβρὸς καλέεσθαι αὖθι μένων· οἶκον δέ κʼ ἐγὼ καὶ κτήματα δοίην, εἴ κʼ ἐθέλων γε μένοις· ἀέκοντα δέ σʼ οὔ τις ἐρύξει Φαιήκων· μὴ τοῦτο φίλον Διὶ πατρὶ γένοιτο.
Would that, father Zeus and Athena and Apollo, being such as you are, and thinking as I do, you might hold my daughter and be called my son-in-law, staying here; and I would give a house and possessions, if willingly you would stay; but against your will none of the Phaeacians will detain you; may this not be dear to father Zeus.
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The setting
Reassured and impressed, Alcinous makes an extraordinary wish: that a man like this stranger — still unnamed to him — would marry Nausicaa and stay. He softens it at once: no one will hold Odysseus against his will.
A note on this passage
The king wishes aloud, calling on Zeus, Athena, and Apollo: that a man of Odysseus's mind might hold his daughter, be called his son-in-law, and stay, with a house and goods for a gift. Then he lifts the pressure again — only if you would stay willingly; no Phaeacian will keep you against your will.
Alcinous offers his daughter to a shipwrecked stranger whose name he does not yet know. It is the fairy-tale open-handedness of Phaeacia, and also its quiet danger: staying is exactly what the whole poem resists. Odysseus has a wife and an island, and the wish that he remain is, unknowingly, a wish against his νόστος — which the king himself half-cancels in the same breath.
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