Ulysses acknowledged king Alcinous’s bounty; and while these two royal personages stood interchanging courteous expressions, the heart of the princess Nausicaa was overcome:  she had been gazing attentively upon her father’s guest, as he delivered his speech; but when he came to that part where he declared himself to be Ulysses, she blessed herself, and her fortune, that in relieving a poor ship-wrecked mariner, as he seemed no better, she had conferred a kindness on so divine a hero as he proved:  and scarce waiting till her father had done speaking, with a cheerful countenance she addressed Ulysses, bidding him be cheerful, and when he returned home, as by her father’s means she trusted he would shortly, sometimes to remember to whom he owed his life, and who met him in the woods by the river Callicoe.

“Fair flower of Phaeacia,” he replied, “so may all the gods bless me with the strife of joys in that desired day, whenever I shall see it, as I shall always acknowledge to be indebted to your fair hand for the gift of life which I enjoy, and all the blessings which shall follow upon my home-return.  The gods give thee, Nausicaa, a princely husband; and from you two spring blessings to this state.”  So prayed Ulysses, his heart overflowing with admiration and grateful recollections of king Alcinous’s daughter.

Then at the king’s request he gave them a brief relation of all the adventures that had befallen him, since he launched forth from Troy:  during which the princess Nausicaa took great delight (as ladies are commonly taken with these kind of travellers’ stories) to hear of the monster Polyphemus, of the men that devour each other in Laestrygonia, of the enchantress Circe, of Scylla, and the rest; to which she listened with a breathless attention, letting fall a shower of tears from her fair eyes every now and then, when Ulysses told of some more than usual distressful passage in his travels:  and all the rest of his auditors, if they had before entertained a high respect for their guest, now felt their veneration increased ten-fold, when they learned from his own mouth what perils, what sufferance, what endurance, of evils beyond man’s strength to support, this much-sustaining, almost heavenly man, by the greatness of his mind, and by his invincible courage, had struggled through.

The night was far spent before Ulysses had ended his narrative, and with wishful glances he cast his eyes towards the eastern parts, which the sun had begun to flecker with his first red:  for on the morrow Alcinous had promised that a bark should be in readiness to convoy him to Ithaca.

In the morning a vessel well manned and appointed was waiting for him; into which the king and queen heaped presents of gold and silver, massy plate, apparel, armour, and whatsoever things of cost or rarity they judged would be most acceptable to their guest:  and the sails being set, Ulysses embarking with expressions of regret took his leave of his royal entertainers, of the fair princess (who had been his first friend,) and of the peers of Phaeacia; who crowding down to the beach to have the last sight of their illustrious visitant, beheld the gallant ship with all her canvas spread, bounding and curvetting over the waves, like a horse proud of his rider; or as if she knew that in her capacious womb’s rich freightage she bore Ulysses.