The Odyssey by Homer: Day 8
Book 6, lines 1-331
I revel in the concreteness of these domestic details: the “nutritious” meal packed for Nausicaa by her mother, the “goatskin” in which it is stored, the trodding and salt-pebble scouring of the clothes to clean them, the olive oil the girls rub on their skin.
The sexual suggestiveness in the encounter between Odysseus and Nausicaa is an insistent undercurrent. It threatens to erupt in the “hunger,” “need,” “nakedness,” and power dynamics of the simile:
“Just as a mountain lion trusts its strength, / and beaten by the rain and wind, its eyes / burn bright as it attacks the cows or sheep, / or wild deer, and hunger drives it on / to try the sturdy pens of sheep—so need / impelled Odysseus to come upon / the girls with pretty hair, though he was naked.”
I marvel at how Wilson has choreographed the word order across these lines.
Nausicaa is every bit Odysseus’s equal in poise, utterly appropriate in her responses, commanding in her decisiveness, her choice of words.
Join us on March 18 for a virtual discussion of The Odyssey with Stefania Heim
Now we know where Leo drew inspiration when he let Andrei meet Natasha and her girlhood friends on that beautiful spring day...
I’m going to out myself as a very frivolous, superficial reader who reads for plot first and foremost. A Princess and Her Laundry? What fun! Today’s reading was like a delightful Regency romp. Was Homer the Georgette Heyer of the Ancient World?