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Now in these cases the difference is manifest; but in cases where Homer’s judgement is not made clear, a distinction is to be drawn by directing the young man’s attention in some such manner as the following: If, on the one hand, Nausicaa, after merely looking at a strange man, Odysseus, and experiencing Calypso’s emotions toward him, being, as she was, a wanton child and at the age for marriage, utters such foolish words as these to her maid-servants, How I wish that a man like this might be called my husband, Living here with us, and be contented to tarry,Homer, Od. vi. 244. then are her boldness and lack of restraint to be blamed. But if, on the other hand, she sees into the character of the man from his words, and marvels at his conversation, so full of good sense, and then prays that she may be the consort of such a person rather than of some sailor man or dancing man of her own townsmen, then it is quite right to admire her. And again, when Penelope enters into conversation with the suitors, not holding herself aloof, and they favour her with gifts of garments and other apparel, Odysseus is pleased Since she had coaxed all these gifts from them, and had cozened their senses. Ibid. xviii. 282. If, on the one hand, he rejoices at the receipt of the presents and the profit, then in his prostitution of his wife he outdoes Poliager, who is satirized in the comedy as Poliager blest Who keeps a Cyprian goat to yield him wealth.Kock, Com. Att. Frag. iii. 299. Cf. Alciphro, Epist. iii. 62. The reference is probably to the goat Amalthea, the fabled nurse of the infant Zeus, but Pantazides thinks that Uranium (Οὐράνιον) may have been the woman’s name. But if, on the other hand, he thinks that he shall have them more in his power, while they are confident because of their hopes and blind to the future, then his pleasure and confidence has a reasonable justification. Similarly, in the enumeration of his possessions which the Phaeacians had put ashore with him before they sailed away, if on the one hand, upon finding himself in such solitude and in such uncertainty and ambiguity regarding his surroundings, he really fears about his possessions, Lest the men on the ship had sailed away with something,Homer, Od. xiii. 216. then it is quite right to pity or indeed even to loathe his avarice. But if, on the other hand, he, as some say, being of two minds whether he were in Ithaca, thinks that the safety of his possessions is a demonstration of the rectitude of the Phaeacians (for otherwise they would not have carried him for nothing, put him ashore in a strange land, and left him there, at the same time keeping their hands off his possessions), then he makes use of no mean proof, and it is quite right to praise his forethought. But some critics find fault also with the very act of putting him ashore, if this really was done while he was asleep, and assert that the Etruscans still preserve a tradition that Odysseus was naturally sleepy, and that for this reason most people found him difficult to converse with. Yet if his sleep was not real, but if, being ashamed to send away the Phaeacians without gifts and entertainment, and at the same time unable to elude his enemies if the Phaeacians were in company with him, he provided himself with a cloak for his embarrassment in feigning himself asleep, then they find this acceptable.
