When they came to the beautiful streams of the river where the washing places always ran abundant and clear, they unyoked the mules and drove them along the eddying river to graze on sweet clover. They took the clothes in their arms, carried them into the dark water, and trampled them in the trenches, making a contest of the quick work. When they had washed them clean they spread them in a row on the shore where the sea washed the pebbles cleanest.
When they had bathed and anointed themselves richly with oil, they took their meal by the banks waiting for the clothes to dry in the bright sun. Then they threw off their head-veils and played ball. White-armed Nausicaa led them in the song. As Artemis of the arrows goes over the mountains — along lofty Taygetus or Erymanthus — Artemis holds her head above them all, and easily she is known, though all are beautiful — so the unwed girl stood out among her handmaids.
But when she was about to fold the beautiful clothes and yoke the mules and turn back home, Athena had another thought — so Odysseus would wake and see the fair-faced girl, and she would lead him to the city of the Phaeacians. The princess threw the ball at a handmaid. She missed and threw it into a deep eddy. They cried out loud. Godlike Odysseus woke. Sitting up he pondered in his heart:
“Wretched me — whose land have I come to this time? Are they violent and savage, and without justice — or friendly to strangers with a god-fearing mind? A cry of girls surrounded me — nymphs who hold the steep mountain peaks and the springs of rivers and the grassy meadows. Or am I somehow near men of human speech? Come — I myself will try and see.”