On the whole he thought it would be better to keep at arm's length,
in case the princess should take offence at his coming too near
her."
Let me say in passing that this is one of many passages which have
led me to conclude that the Odyssey is written by a woman. A girl,
such as Nausicaa describes herself, young, unmarried, unattached,
and hence, after all, knowing little of what men feel on these
matters, having by a cruel freak of inspiration got her hero into
such an awkward predicament, might conceivably imagine that he would
argue as she represents him, but no man, except such a woman's
tailor as could never have written such a masterpiece as the
Odyssey, would ever get his hero into such an undignified scrape at
all, much less represent him as arguing as Ulysses does. I suppose
Minerva was so busy making Nausicaa brave that she had no time to
put a little sense into Ulysses' head, and remind him that he was
nothing if not full of sagacity and resource. To return--
Ulysses now begins with the most judicious apology that his unaided
imagination can suggest.
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