elf, but should see that those about you look
clean and tidy also. This is the way to make people speak well of
you, and it will please your father and mother, so suppose we make
to-morrow a washing day, and begin the first thing in the morning.
I will come and help you, for all the best young men among your own
people are courting you, and you are not going to remain a maid much
longer. Ask your father, then, to have a horse and cart ready for
us at daybreak to take the linen and baskets, and you can ride too,
which will be much pleasanter for you than walking, for the washing
ground is a long way out of the town.'

"When she had thus spoken Minerva went back to Olympus. By and by
morning came, and as soon as Nausicaa woke she began thinking about
her dream. She went to the other end of the house to tell her
father and mother all about it, and found them in their own room.
Her mother was sitting by the fireside spinning with her maids-in-
waiting all around her, and she happened to catch her father just as
he was going out to attend a meeting of the Town Council which the
Phaeacian aldermen had convened. So she stopped him and said,
'Papa, dear, could you manage to let me have a good big waggon? I
want to take all our dirty clothes to the river and wash them. You
are the chief man here, so you ought to have a clean shirt on when
you attend meetings of the Council. Moreover, you have five sons at
home, two of them married and the other three are good-looking young
bachelors; you know they always like to have clean linen when they
go out to a dance, and I have been thinking about all this.'"

You will observe that though Nausicaa dreams that she is going to be
married shortly, and that all the best young men of Scheria are in
love with her, she does not dream that she has fallen in love with
any one of them in particular, and that thus every preparation is
made for her getting married except the selection of the bridegroom.

You will also note that Nausicaa has to keep her father up to
putting a clean shirt on when he ought to have one, whereas her
young brothers appear to keep herself up to having a clean shirt
ready for them when they want one. These little touches are so
lifelike and so feminine that they suggest drawing from life by a
female member of Alcinous's own family who knew his character from
behind the scenes.

I would also say before proceeding further that in some parts of
France and Germany