, "that have contracted
soil by this time with lying by so long in the wardrobe. Five sons
have you, that are my brothers; two of them are married, and three
are bachelors; these last it concerns to have their garments neat and
unsoiled; it may advance their fortunes in marriage: and who but I
their sister should have a care of these things? You yourself, my
father, have need of the whitest apparel, when you go, as now, to the
council."

She used this plea, modestly dissembling her care of her own nuptials
to her father; who was not displeased at this instance of his
daughter's discretion: for a seasonable care about marriage may be
permitted to a young maiden, provided it be accompanied with modesty
and dutiful submission to her parents in the choice of her future
husband: and there was no fear of Nausicaa chusing wrongly or
improperly, for she was as wise as she was beautiful, and the best in
all Phaeacia were suitors to her for her love. So Alcinous readily gave
consent that she should go, ordering mules and a coach to be prepared.
And Nausicaa brought from her chamber all her vestments, and laid them
up in the coach, and her mother placed bread and wine in the coach,
and oil in a golden cruse, to soften the bright skins of Nausicaa and
her maids when they came out of the river.

Nausicaa making her maids get up into the coach with her, lashed the
mules, till they brought her to the cisterns which stood a little on
the outside of the town, and were supplied with water from the river
Callicoe.

There her attendants unyoked the mules, took out the clothes, and
steeped them in the cisterns, washing them in several waters, and
afterwards treading them clean with their feet, venturing wagers who
should have done soonest and cleanest, and using many pretty pastimes
to beguile their labour as young maids use, while the princess looked
on. When they had laid their clothes to dry, they fell to playing
again, and Nausicaa joined them in a game with the ball, which is used
in that country, which is performed by tossing the ball from hand
to hand with great expedition, she who begins the pastime singing a
song. It chanced that the princess whose turn it became to toss the
ball, sent it so far from its mark, that it fell beyond into one of
the cisterns of the river: at which the whole company, in merry
consternation, set up a shriek so loud as waked the sleeping Ulysses,
who was taking his rest after his long toils, in the wo