Nausicaa

Princess of the Phaeacians, daughter of Alcinous and Arete, who became Odysseus's first human encounter after twenty days on the open sea. Athena sent her a dream on the morning after his shipwreck telling her to go with her maids and wash the household linen at the mouth of the river, and when the salt-caked stranger crawled from the bushes Nausicaa alone held her ground while her maids fled. She gave him clothes and bread and directed him to her father's palace, but — with the tact of the Homeric princess — she sent him to enter the city alone, lest tongues wag (Homer *Odyssey* 6.110-315).

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