Nausicaa

Odysseus and Nausicaä, by Charles Gleyre.

In ancient Greek literature, Nausicaa (often rendered Nausicaä or Nausikaa; Greek: Ναυσικάα^[1]) is the daughter of King Alcinous (Alkínoös) of the Phaeacians and Queen Arete in Homer's Odyssey (Odýsseia), Book Six. Her name means, in Greek, "burner of ships".

Role in the Odyssey

Nausicaa, Frederic Leighton ca. 1878.

Despite being a princess, Nausicaa was an active participant in maintaining Alcinous's house. She meets Odysseus due to going to the shoreline to do laundry with the other castle servants. The shipwrecked Odysseus emerges from the forest completely naked, scaring the servants away, and begs Nausicaa for aid. Nausicaa requisitions some of the laundry for him to wear, and takes him to the city limits. Realizing that explaining Odysseus's presence with her might cause rumors, she and the servants go ahead into town, but she gives Odysseus advice on how to present himself: he is to go directly to Alcinous's house and make his case to Nausicaa's mother, Arete. Arete was known as wiser even than Alcinous, and Alcinous trusted her judgments. Odysseus saw the wisdom in her plan, and was easily granted Alcinous' hospitality after conversing with Queen Arete.^[2]

A substantial portion of the Odyssey consists of Odysseus recounting his adventures to Alcinous and his guests. Alcinous then generously provides Odysseus with the ships that finally bring him home to Ithaca.

Nausicaa is young and very pretty; Odysseus says that she resembles a goddess, particularly Artemis. Nausicaa is known to have several brothers. According to Aristotle and Dictys of Crete, Telemachus, son of Odysseus, later married Nausicaa and had a son named Perseptolis or Ptoliporthus.

Homer gives a literary account of love never expressed: while she is presented as a potential love interest to Odysseus – she says to her friend that she would like her husband to be like him, and her father tells Odysseus he would let him marry her – nothing really results between the pair. Nausicaa is also a mother figure for Odysseus; she ensures Odysseus' return home, and thus says "Never forget me, for I gave you life," indicating her status as a "new mother" in Odysseus' rebirth.^[3]

Later influence

The 2nd century BC grammarian Agallis attributed the invention of ball games to Nausicaa, most likely because Nausicaa was the first person in literature to be described playing with a ball.^[4]

Nausicaa has been occasionally referenced in literature and art. The 1984 movie Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind had its main character loosely inspired by a description of Nausicaa its director, Hayao Miyazaki, read in a Japanese translation of an anthology of Greek mythology; that version of Nausicaa was portrayed as a lover of nature with other embellishments to fill in the gaps from Homer.

Chapter 13 in James Joyce's Ulysses is entitled "Nausicaa" and echoes the story to a degree, where the character Gerty McDowell (Nausicaa's analogue) tempts Bloom. In the novel Cold Mountain (1997), by Charles Frazier, which contains many parallels to the story of Odysseus, the young widow, Sara (played by Natalie Portman in the 2003 movie), serves as a parallel character to Nausicaa. She offers W.P. Inman, the wandering Civil War soldier, shelter for the night in her backwoods cabin. Sara and Inman share an intimate scene where they lie together in bed, but do not make love. Afterwards, Sara sends Inman on his way, on the last leg of his journey back to Cold Mountain, to find his beloved Ada.

An asteroid discovered in 1879, 192 Nausikaa, is named after her.

References

Sources

• Portions of this material originated as excerpts from the public-domain 1848 edition of the Classical Dictionary by John Lemprière.

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