Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools: Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists
General
Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools: Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists
American literature
"I am your suppliant, princess. Are you some god or mortal? If one of
the gods who hold the open sky, to Artemis, daughter of mighty Zeus, in
beauty, height, and bearing I find you likest. But if you are a mortal,
living on the earth, most happy are your father and your honored
mother, most happy your brothers also. Surely their hearts ever grow
warm with pleasure over you, when watching such a blossom moving in the
dance. And then exceeding happy he, beyond all others, who shall with
gifts prevail and lead you home. For I never before saw such a being
with these eyes--no man, no woman. I am amazed to see. At Delos once, by
Apollo's altar, something like you I noticed, a young palm shoot
springing up; for thither too I came, and a great troop was with me,
upon a journey where I was to meet with bitter trials. And just as when
I looked on that I marveled long within, since never before sprang such
a stalk from earth; so, lady, I admire and marvel now at you, and
greatly fear to touch your knees. Yet grievous woe is on me. Yesterday,
after twenty days, I escaped from the wine-dark sea, and all that time
the waves and boisterous winds bore me away from the island of Ogygia.
Now some god cast me here, that probably here also I may meet with
trouble; for I do not think trouble will cease, but much the gods will
first accomplish. Then, princess, have compassion, for it is you to whom
through many grievous toils I first am come; none else I know of all who
own this city and this land. Show me the town, and give me a rag to
throw around me, if you had perhaps on coming here some wrapper for your
linen. And may the gods grant all that in your thoughts you long for:
husband and home and true accord may they bestow; for a better and
higher gift than this there cannot be, when with accordant aims man and
wife have a home. Great grief it is to foes and joy to friends; but they
themselves best know its meaning."
Then answered him white-armed Nausicaä: "Stranger, because you do not
seem a common, senseless person,--and Olympian Zeus himself distributes
fortune to mankind and gives to high and low even as he wills to each;
and this he gave to you, and you must bear it therefore,--now you have
reached our city and our land, you shall not lack for clothes nor
anything besides which it is fit a hard-pressed suppliant should find. I
will point out the town and tell its people's name. The Phaeacians own
this city and this land, and I am the daughter of generous Alcinoüs, on
whom the might and power of the Phaeacians rests."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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