Let us arise betimes to wash your fair
vestments of linen and silks in the river; and request your sire to lend
you mules and a coach, for your wardrobe is heavy, and the place where we
must wash is distant, and besides it fits not a great princess like you to
go so far on foot."
So saying, she went away, and Nausicaa awoke, full of pleasing thoughts of
her marriage, which the dream had told her was not far distant; and as
soon as it was dawn she arose and dressed herself, and went to find her
parents.
The queen her mother was already up, and seated among her maids, spinning
at her wheel, as the fashion was in those primitive times, when great
ladies did not disdain housewifery: and the king her father was preparing
to go abroad at that early hour to council with his grave senate.
"My father," she said, "will you not order mules and a coach to be got
ready, that I may go and wash, I and my maids, at the cisterns that stand
without the city?"
"What washing does my daughter speak of?" said Alcinous.
"Mine and my brothers' garments," she replied, "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.
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