7.37-77

1. Nausicaa in her bedroom (6.15–40; 7.7–13).
2. Odysseus “rises” (6.255–57; 7.14).
3. History of Nausicaa’s family (6.4–14; 7.54–66).
4. Odysseus meets a young girl and asks for help in getting into town (6.149–85; 7.21–26).
5. A young girl will lead the hero (6.261; 7.30).
6. The young girl worries that the hero will encounter unsuitable locals and takes precautions (6.273–96; 7.30–31).
7. The young girl instructs hero to approach Arete first when entering the palace (6.303–15; 7.50–77).

Scale usually marks importance in Homeric poetry, and by essentially describing Odysseus’s progress to the Phaeacian royal palace twice, the poet draws our attention to the significance of the moment for the larger structure of the story. While a short walk into town might seem less than momentous, this one is part of one of the most ubiquitous story patterns in Greek literature: evil in the past, the arrival of a stranger, followed by death. Homer’s Iliad, and Odyssey, Aeschylus’s Oresteia trilogy, Sophocles’s Oedipus Tyrannus, Euripides’s Bacchae, and many other poems and plays share the pattern. Elements that would attract a Greek storyteller are inherent in the form. The stranger can bring excitement but also perhaps danger, even death, disturbing the established order of the society he enters. In a society composed primarily of small, isolated towns, where any new arrival would prompt curiosity and suspicion, stories based on this pattern would be popular.

In the Odyssey’s version of this narrative pattern, the past evil is the Trojan War, and the looming threat of death is realized on various levels, literal and figurative. Most importantly, Odysseus plays the role of mysterious stranger, making him a potential threat wherever he arrives. Note that the poet has his hero adopt this persona by choice—Odysseus might well reveal his identity as soon as he arrives in a new place, rather than withholding it—and the implications of this choice tell us much about Homer’s methods as a storyteller. By sending his hero into new places as an anonymous stranger, the poet also raises the possibility that the locals will be suspicious and even hostile. If so, then Odysseus must be on guard against threats. This dynamic ensures that each new encounter will be charged with tension: Will the locals abuse their visitor? Can the stranger win them over, or will he and/or his mission die before he reaches home? This element in the story might help explain why, for instance, both Nausicaa and Athena insist that there is a real danger of conflict with young Phaeacian men when in fact, apart from a brief, testosterone-fueled exchange between Odysseus and local youths over the athletic games (8.143–255), the reception by the Phaeacians is quite warm. Just the prospect of conflict raises the temperature of the episode and creates excitement.

Another aspect of the repeated narrative pattern reflects its role in the larger structure of the poem. The Iliad and the Odyssey share a traditional style based on oral composition, with stories based on the use of repeated forms, words, verses, and entire scenes, which the poet uses to build meaning by accretion. Each time a repeated element appears, it brings with it associations from previous examples, which a new context then enriches and extends. The anonymous stranger will penetrate a new milieu many times in the Odyssey, with each having its own peculiar features. All these episodes build toward the most important version, the arrival of Odysseus in Ithaka, disguised as an anonymous beggar, abused, and dismissed by the arrogant suitors but ultimately triumphant. The hero’s sojourn on Scheria is the first major appearance of the pattern and much of what happens in Alkinous’s palace can be understood as preparation for the beggar’s entry into the royal household at Ithaka.

The disguised Athena drops Odysseus at the door of the palace, leaving him with one last piece of advice: he should seek out the queen, Arete, whose lineage and exalted position among the Phaeacians the goddess covers in some detail. Why Odysseus is directed to the queen rather than the king has come in for considerable discussion by scholars (see essay on Od. 6.289–331). The theory that her prominence might reflect some trace of matriarchy is tantalizing, but there is little evidence of that system being in force at any time in Greek society. In any event, there is an explanation much closer to home, in the repeated narrative patterns that inform Homeric style. Arete takes her place in the Odyssey’s rich series of powerful female characters Odysseus encounters as he makes his way home. Each offers him a slightly different set of challenges, from Calypso’s smothering affection to Nausicaa’s innocent crush, from Charybdis’ voracious whirlpool to the Sirens’ alluring song. Most importantly, each represents a partial realization of Penelope’s full complexity. As he makes his way across the sea toward Ithaka, Odysseus foreshadows the ultimate trials he must undergo in his own palace before he can restore proper order there. The two most important tests will come from the suitors and from his own wife. The former he will surmount with a mix of trickery and brute force; the latter will require that he woo and win his wife—no slouch when it comes to trickery—all over again, calling on everything he has learned from her various stand-ins on the way home.

Seen through this lens, Arete’s importance is not mysterious. The episode in the Phaeacian palace foreshadows the arrival of the beggar/hero in the palace on Ithaka. Odysseus must win over the queen on Scheria just as he must win over the queen in Ithaka. Characteristically, Penelope subsumes the role not only of Arete but of her daughter. The second courtship of Odysseus and Penelope is foreshadowed in the hero’s encounters with both Nausicaa and Arete. (See essay for Book 6.211–38). Penelope’s emergence from frozen grief Book 18 draws on the portrait of the nubile young princess on the threshold of adult sexuality, as both women find themselves drawn to the mysterious stranger. In her crucial nighttime meeting with the beggar, Penelope’s role as queen in the royal household has antecedents in the portrait of Arete. Each must be won over for the plans of the anonymous stranger to be realized.

Further Reading

Beye, C. 1987. Ancient Greek Literature and Society, 2^nd ed., 156. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.

Fenik, B. 1974. Studies in the Odyssey, 105–130; 153–171. Hermes Einzelschriften 30. Wiesbaden: F. Steiner.

Rose, G. 1969. “The Unfriendly Phaeacians.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 100: 387–406.

Van Nortwick, T. 2008. The Unknown Odysseus: Alternate Worlds in Homer’s Odyssey, 46–47. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.