Page:Homer. The Odyssey (IA homerodyssey00collrich).pdf/72

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THE ODYSSEY.
"He from the bath, cleansed from the dust of toil,Passed to the drinkers; and Nausicaa thereStood, moulded by the gods exceeding fair.She on the roof-tree pillar leaning, heardOdysseus; turning, she beheld him near.Deep in her breast admiring wonder stirred,And in a low sweet voice she spake this winged word.
"'Hail, stranger-guest! when fatherland and wife Thou shalt revisit, then remember me,Since to me first thou owest the price of life.'And to the royal virgin answered he:'Child of a generous sire, if willed it beBy Thunderer Zeus, who all dominion hath,That I my home and dear return yet see,There at thy shrine will I devote my breath,There worship thee, dear maid, my saviour from dark death.'"

It is not easy to discover, with any certainty, what the Greek poet meant us to understand as to the feelings of Nausicaa towards Ulysses. It has been said that Love, in the complex modern acceptation of the term, is unknown to the Greek poets. Nor is there, in this passage, any approach to the expression of such a feeling on the part of the princess. Yet, had the scene found place in the work of a modern poet, we should have understood at once that, without any kind of reproach to the perfect maidenly delicacy of Nausicaa, it was meant to show us the dawn of a tender sentiment—nothing more—towards the stranger-guest whom the gods had endowed with such majestic graces of person, who stood so high above all rivals in feats of strength and skill, whose misfortunes surrounded him with a double interest, and, above all, in whom she felt a kind of personal property as his deliverer.

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