Then they got their dinner by
the side of the river, and waited for the sun to finish drying the
clothes. By and by, after dinner, they took off their head-dresses
and began to play at ball, and Nausicaa sang to them."
I think you will agree with me that there is no haziness--no milking
of ewes that have had a lamb with them all night--here. The writer
is at home and on her own ground.
"When they had done folding the clothes and were putting the mules
to the waggon before starting home again, Minerva thought it was
time Ulysses should wake up and see the handsome girl who was to
take him to the city of the Phaeacians. So the princess threw a
ball at one of the maids, which missed the maid and fell into the
water. On this they all shouted, and the noise they made woke up
Ulysses, who sat up in his bed of leaves and wondered where in the
world he could have got to.
"Then he crept from under the bush beneath which he had slept, broke
off a thick bough so as to cover his nakedness, and advanced towards
Nausicaa and her maids; these last all ran away, but Nausicaa stood
her ground, for Minerva had put courage into her heart, so she kept
quite still, and Ulysses could not make up his mind whether it would
be better to go up to her, throw himself at her feet, and embrace
her knees as a suppliant--[in which case, of course, he would have
to drop the bough] or whether it would be better for him to make an
apology to her at a reasonable distance, and ask her to be good
enough to give him some clothes and show him the way to the town.
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