As we see, Alcinous can deny nothing to his fair young daughter. The lightly running mule-cart is ordered out, and Nausicaa and the maids set busily to work. It is refreshing to see this only daughter of a ‘king’ carrying out the linen and fleecy blankets that have been daintily wrought with needlecraft by her own hands. Alcinous, of course, is not to be regarded as possessing the power and state of a modern monarch; perhaps he was not a king at all, in our sense of the word. But there can be no doubt that his state was that of a rich and mighty lord, for he lives in a magnificence which makes the simple practical usefulness of his daughter all the more remarkable. She helps the servants to load the wagon, while the Queen herself places upon the box a skin of wine and many dainty things to eat at their midday meal, together with a golden flask of oil for their use when they wish to bathe. When all is ready, Nausicaa drives off merrily, her women running at the side of the cart. Far out of the city they go, past the embattled walls and the market-place and the harbour: then on through farms and sloping, shimmering olive-gardens, until they reach the sea and the washing-pools—the very spot, in fact, where ‘toil-worn, bright Odysseus’ is sleeping the sleep of exhaustion, after his heart-breaking struggle with the waves. The mules are unyoked and the clothes are brought out of the cart and flung into the dark water. Then the girls bare their white feet, catch up their fluttering garments, and tread the clothes in the gushing water, gaily chattering the while. When all are cleansed, they are spread out in the sun on the pebbly beach, while the girls bathe and take their dainty meal upon the shore. All this while there lay in a thicket quite close to them, the prostrate figure of Odysseus, like one dead. But when the afternoon was wearing on, the girls joined in a merry game of ball, before starting on their homeward journey. The lovely group lives before us as we read, fresh from their sea-bath, with crisping ringlets floating, cheeks touched to a rosier hue by exercise and fun, and all the charms of youth and beauty revealed as white arms throw the ball and twinkling feet run hither and thither after it, upon the yellow sand. Homer, in one of his rare exceptions, lingers a moment to tell us how Nausicaa looked on this occasion. But, characteristically, he does this by imagery, and imagery in motion. _But when their hearts with food were comforted Their kerchiefs they undid to play at ball; And in the game white-armed Nausicaa led._ _Artemis the Arrow-showerer even so Rejoices on the mountain side to go All down the long slope of Taÿgetus Or Erymanthus, while before her bow_