To the maidens seem to have been chiefly assigned the outdoor tasks of the household, which would contribute to their physical development. Thus the Princess Nausicaa and her girl friends wash in the river the garments of fathers and brothers; and the Shield of Achilles represented a vintage scene where "maidens and striplings in childish glee bear the sweet fruit in plaited baskets, and in the midst of them a boy made pleasant music on a clear-toned viol, and sang thereto a sweet Linus-song, while the rest with feet falling together kept time with the music and the song." The education of the girls was of the simplest character. They grew up in the apartment of the mother, and learned from her simple piety toward the gods a modest bearing, skill in needlework, and efficiency in the management of a household. While enjoying a freedom far greater than that allowed to maidens in the classical period, the Homeric girls did not take part in the feasts and pastimes of court life. Thus the poet tells us that Nausicaa, who is a perfect picture of the Greek girl in the springtime of her youth and beauty, "retired to her chamber upon her return to the palace, and supper was served to her by a nurse in her apartments," while Odysseus was being graciously entertained by her father and mother in the court below. Strict attention to the _convenances_ of their sex and station was required of these primitive women; and the high-minded maiden Nausicaa feared evil report should the stranger, Odysseus, be seen with her in the streets of the city, as such intimacy would be a "shame" to her, a maiden; while it was also a "shame" for a married woman to go alone into the presence of men, even when in her own house, though she could enter their presence when attended by her handmaidens. Thus Penelope is followed by her maidens when she goes to the hall of the men to hear the minstrel Phemius. "Bid Antinoe and Hippodamia," says she, "come to stand by my side in the halls, for alone I will not go among men, for I am ashamed." Nor did Helen and Andromache ever appear in public without their handmaidens. In seeming opposition to this excessive modesty was that office of hospitality which ofttimes required young women to bathe and anoint the distinguished strangers who were guests in the house. Thus Polycaste, the beautiful daughter of Nestor, bathed and anointed Telemachus, and put on him a cloak and vest. Helen performed like offices for Odysseus when he came in disguise into Troy, and Circe later for the same hero. Though the poet's statements may at times, in matters of outward appearance, do violence to modern social rules, yet, because life in heroic times was simpler and less conventional, there could innocently be greater freedom of expression between the sexes regarding many matters which are tabooed in good society in this very conventional age. Hence such passages as those cited are to be taken rather as an evidence of the innocence and