cross the foaming sea.  Now the rude talk of such as these I would avoid, that no one afterwards may give me blame.  For very forward persons are about the place, and some coarse man might say, if he should meet us:  ’What tall and handsome stranger is following Nausicaae?  Where did she find him?  A husband he will be, her very own.  Some castaway, perhaps, she rescued from his vessel, some foreigner; for we have no neighbors here.  Or at her prayer some long-entreated god has come straight down from heaven, and he will keep her his forever.  So much the better, if she has gone herself and found a husband elsewhere!  The people of our own land here, Phaeacians, she disdains, though she has many high-born suitors.’  So they will talk, and for me it would prove a scandal.  I should myself censure a girl who acted so, who, heedless of friends, while father and mother were alive, mingled with men before her public wedding.  And, stranger, listen now to what I say, that you may soon obtain assistance and safe conduct from my father.  Near our road you will see a stately grove of poplar trees, belonging to Athene; in it a fountain flows, and round it is a meadow.  That is my father’s park, his fruitful vineyard, as far from the town as one can call.  There sit and wait a while, until we come to the town and reach my father’s palace.  But when you think we have already reached the palace, enter the city of the Phaeacians, and ask for the palace of my father, generous Alcinoues.  Easily is it known; a child, though young, could show the way; for the Phaeacians do not build their houses like the dwelling of Alcinoues their prince.  But when his house and court receive you, pass quickly through the hall until you find my mother.  She sits in the firelight by the hearth, spinning sea-purple yarn, a marvel to behold, and resting against a pillar.  Her handmaids sit behind her.  Here too my father’s seat rests on the self-same pillar, and here he sits and sips his wine like an immortal.  Passing him by, stretch out your hands to our mother’s knees, if you would see the day of your return in gladness and with speed, although you come from far.  If she regards you kindly in her heart, then there is hope that you may see your friends and reach your stately house and native land.”

Saying this, with her bright whip she struck the mules, and fast they left the river’s streams; and well they trotted, well they plied their feet, and skillfully she reined them that those on foot might follow,—­the waiting-women and Odysseus,—­and moderately she used the lash.  The sun was setting when they reached the famous grove, Athene’s sacred ground where royal Odysseus sat him down.  And thereupon he prayed to the daughter of mighty Zeus:—­

“Hearken, thou child of aegis-bearing Zeus, unwearied one!  O hear me now, although before thou didst not hear me, when I was wrecked, what time the great Land-shaker wrecked me.  Grant that I come among the Phaeacians welcomed and pitied by them.”