Odyssey 8.457 · Book 8, lines 457–460
Nausicaa at the pillar
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ἤιε· Ναυσικάα δὲ θεῶν ἄπο κάλλος ἔχουσα στῆ ῥα παρὰ σταθμὸν τέγεος πύκα ποιητοῖο, θαύμαζεν δʼ Ὀδυσῆα ἐν ὀφθαλμοῖσιν ὁρῶσα, καί μιν φωνήσασʼ ἔπεα πτερόεντα προσηύδα·
he went; and Nausicaa, holding beauty from the gods, stood beside the doorpost of the strong-built hall, and marvelled at Odysseus, as she looked with her eyes, and speaking addressed to him winged words:
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The setting
Odysseus, bathed and newly clothed, walks back to the hall. Nausicaa — the Phaeacian princess who found him washed ashore and sent him on to her father’s house — has been waiting to see him again.
A note on this passage
Plainly: Odysseus rejoins the feast, and Nausicaa, standing at the doorpost of the hall, watches him pass and calls him over. The ‘winged words’ formula tells us a speech is coming.
The undercurrent is where she stands. She does not enter the men’s feast; she halts at the pillar, on the threshold, as a young unmarried woman must. From there she looks her fill at the transfigured stranger — the beauty ‘from the gods’ is Athena’s doing — and the girl who hoped, on the beach, that such a man might be her husband keeps her distance while she says goodbye.
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