ODYSSEY: THE GREAT RETURN - BOOK IX

e has lost everything. His ship. His men. His strength. After seven years as a prisoner of the goddess Calypso, Odysseus escapes on a raft, only for Poseidon to shatter it in a final storm. He washes ashore on an unknown beach at dawn. Naked. Broken. Covered in salt and sand. Then he hears voices. Nausicaa, the young Princess of the Phaeacians, has come to the river with her handmaidens to wash clothes and dream of marriage. She finds him sleeping in the bushes, more beast than man. Her maids run away screaming. Nausicaa stays. She does not see a monster. She sees a man who needs help. She gives him clothes. She gives him food. And she shows him the path to her father's palace. For the Phaeacians are a blessed people. Their ships fly across the sea with no rudder. They can take any man home. But first, Odysseus must remember who he is. BOOK IX: NAUSICAA is the most tender chapter in the Odyssey. After gods and monsters, after death and temptation, comes a simple act of human kindness. The last island before Ithaca. The final step of NOSTOS. The Princess is waiting.