Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 13, 2025
For as the Phaeacian men are skilled beyond all others in driving a swift ship upon the deep, even so are the women the most cunning at the loom, for Athene hath given them notable wisdom in all fair handiwork and cunning wit. And without the courtyard hard by the door is a great garden, off our ploughgates, and a hedge runs round on either side.
Now when the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, appeared, Alcinous and Ulysses both rose, and Alcinous led the way to the Phaeacian place of assembly, which was near the ships. When they got there they sat down side by side on a seat of polished stone, while Minerva took the form of one of Alcinous' servants, and went round the town in order to help Ulysses to get home.
Full fifty female menials served in household offices, some employed to grind the corn, others to wind off the purple wool or ply the loom. For the Phaeacian women as far exceeded all other women in household arts as the mariners of that country did the rest of mankind in the management of ships. Without the court a spacious garden lay, four acres in extent.
To them humbly kneeling, he made it his request that, since fortune had cast him naked upon their shores, they would take him into their protection, and grant him a conveyance by one of the ships of which their great Phaeacian state had such good store, to carry him to his own country.
Lord Carlisle, in his "Diary in the Turkish and Greek Waters," thus speaks of Corfu, which he considers to be the ancient Phaeacian island: "The sites explain the 'Odyssey. The temple of the sea-god could not have been more fitly placed, upon a grassy platform of the most elastic turf, on the brow of a crag commanding harbor, and channel, and ocean.
Then the King said to the chiefs, "Now that we have feasted and delighted ourselves with song, let us go forth, that this stranger may see that we are skilful in boxing and wrestling and running." Then stood up many Phaeacian youths, and the fairest and strongest of them all was Laodamas, eldest son to the King, and they ran a race, and wrestled, and threw quoits, and leaped.
'Lo now, it must be that the gods at the last have changed their purpose concerning Odysseus, while I was away among the Ethiopians. And now he is nigh to the Phaeacian land, where it is ordained that he escape the great issues of the woe which hath come upon him. But, methinks, that even yet I will drive him far enough in the path of suffering.
Thus much, that you may not fear to trust yourself in one of our Phaeacian ships. Tomorrow, if you please, you shall launch forth. To-day spend with us in feasting, who never can do enough when the gods send such visitors."
Along the walls were seats spread through all their length with mantles of finest texture, the work of Phaeacian maidens. On these seats the princes sat and feasted, while golden statues of graceful youths held in their hands lighted torches which shed radiance over the scene.
'Lo now, it must be that the gods at the last have changed their purpose concerning Odysseus, while I was away among the Ethiopians. And now he is nigh to the Phaeacian land, where it is so ordained that he escape the great issues of the woe which hath come upon him. But me-thinks, that even yet I will drive him far enough in the path of suffering.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking