(2) The reader, along with Nausicaa, is to see the transformation of the beggarly wanderer, who, having taken his bath and put on his raiment, comes forth like a God. This is said to be the work of Pallas, "who caused him to appear taller and more powerful, with flowing locks, like the hyacinth." He becomes plastic in form, beautiful as a statue, into which the divine soul has been transfused by the artist. Such a transforming power lies within him, yet is granted also by a deity; the godlike in the man now takes on a bodily, or rather a sculpturesque appearance, and prophesies Greek plastic art.
The echo of this change is heard in the words of the maiden: "Hear me attendants; not without the will of the Olympians does this man come to us; lately I thought him unseemly, now he is like the Gods who hold the broad Heavens." Such is her lively admiration now, but what means this? "Would that such a man might be called my husband, dwelling here in Phæacia!" That note is indeed deeper than admiration.
(3) The third phase of this little play is the bringing of Ulysses to the city and home of Nausicaa. He, having satisfied his hunger, and being ready to start, receives some advice from the maiden, who seeks to conduct him at once to the center of the home. They will pass first through the outlying country, which shows cultivation; then they will go up into the city, with its lofty tower and double harbor; the seafaring character of the people is especially set forth by Nausicaa, whose name is derived from the Greek word for a ship. Particularly we must notice her fear of gossip, which also existed in Phæacia, ideal though the land was. She must not be seen with Ulysses; men with evil tongues would say: "What stranger is this following Nausicaa? Now she will have a husband." The sharp eye of Goethe detected in this passage the true motive; it is love, always having the tendency to deny itself, which dictates so carefully this avoidance of public report; the thing must not be said just because there is good reason for saying it. Her solicitude betrays her feeling. In pure simplicity of heart she pays the supreme compliment to Ulysses, likening him indirectly to "a God called down from Heaven by her prayers, to live with her all her days." Still further she intimates in the same passage, that "many noble suitors woo her, but she treats them with disdain, they are Phæacians." To be sure she puts these words into the mouth of a gossipy and somewhat disgruntled countryman, but they come round to their mark like a boomerang. Does she not thus announce to the much-enduring man that she is free, though under a good deal of pressure? All this is done in such an artless way, that it becomes the highest art—something which she does not intend but cannot help. Surely such a speech from such a source ought to repay him for suffering shipwreck and for ten years' wandering.
We cannot, therefore, think of calling this passage spurious, with some critics both ancient and modern. The complaint against it is that the young Phæacian lady shows here too much reflection, in conjunction with a tendency to sarcasm foreign to her life. But we find it eminently unreflective and naive; the very point of the passage is that she unconsciously reveals the deepest hidden thought and purpose of her heart to Ulysses. With all her being she must move toward the Family, she would not be herself unless she did; yet how completely she preserves modesty and simple-heartedness! Nor is the sarcastic tinge foreign to young girls. So we shall have to set aside the objections of Aristarchus the old Greek, and Faesi the modern German, commentator.
But the final instruction of Nausicaa is the most interesting; the suppliant is not to go to the father but to the mother. Nay, he is to "pass by my father's throne and clasp my mother's knees," in token of supplication; then he may see the day of return. Herein we may behold in general, the honored place of the mother as the center of the Family, its heart, as it were, full of the tender feelings of compassion and mercy. In the father and king, on the other hand, is the man of the State with its inflexible justice, often putting aside sympathy and commiseration with misfortune. The woman's heart may indeed be called the heart of the world, recognized here by the old poet and his Phæacians.
This mother, however, is in herself a great character; she is next to have a Book of her own, which will more fully set forth her position.
The character of Nausicaa, as here unfolded in the ancient poet, has captivated many generations of readers since Homer began to be read. The story has lived and renewed itself in manifold forms; it has that highest power of a genuine mythus, it produces itself through all ages, taking on a fresh vesture in Time. In old Hellas the tale of Nausicaa was wrought over into various shapes after Homer; it was transformed into a drama, love-story, as well as idyl. The myth-making spirit did not let it drop, but kept unfolding it; later legend, for instance, brought about a marriage between Telemachus and Nausicaa. Our recent greatest poet, Goethe, also responded mightily to the story of Nausicaa; he planned a drama on the subject, of which the outline is to be found in his published works. He did not find time to finish his poem, but there is evidence that he thought much about it and carried it around with him, for a long period. One regrets that the German poet was not able to give this new transformation of his ancient Greek brother, with whom he has manifested on so many lines an intimate connection and poetical kinship. In portions of the Italian Journey specially we see how deeply the Odyssey was moving him and how he was almost on the point of reproducing the whole poem with its marine scenery. But Nausicaa in particular fascinated him, and it would have been the best commentary on the present Book to have seen her in a now grand poetic epiphany in the modern drama of Goethe.
BOOK SEVENTH.
If the last Book was Nausicaa's, this one is Arete's; there is the transition from the daughter to the mother, from the maiden to the wife. Still it is not quite so emphatically a woman's Book, since the wife has to include the husband in her world. Ulysses now goes to the center of the Family, to its heart, that he may meet with compassion. Still she withholds her sympathy at first for a good reason; Arete is not wholly impulse and feeling, she has thought, reflection. So, after all, it is left to the men to take up the suppliant.
Very surprising to us moderns is the picture drawn by the old Greek poet of this woman, and of her position: "the people look upon her as a God when she goes through the city;" her mind is especially praised; she has a judicial character, supposed usually to be alien to women: "she decides controversies among men," or perchance harmonizes them. To be sure her position is stated as exceptional: "her husband honors her, as no other woman on earth is honored;" she is evidently his counselor as well as wife. Thus the poet would have us regard Arete not merely as a person of kind feelings and of sweet womanly instincts, but she has also the highest order of intelligence; she is united with her husband in head as well as in heart, perchance overtopping him in ability. Not domestic simply is the picture, it rises into the political sphere, even into the administration of justice.