…and I will point the way to you.

But when we come to the city, and around this is a towering

wall, and a handsome harbor either side of the city,

and a narrow causeway, and along the road there are oarswept

ships drawn up, for they all have ships, one for each vessel;

and there is the place of assembly, put together quarried

stone, and built around a fine precinct of Poseidon,

and there they tend to all that gear that goes with the black ships,

the hawsers and the sails, and there they fine down their oarblades;

for the Phaeacians have no concern with the bow or the quiver,

but it is all masts and the oars of ships and the balanced vessels

themselves, in which they delight in crossing over the gray sea;…

Homer, The Odyssey, Book

…But now Odysseus

came to the famous house of Alkinoos, but the heart pondered

much in him as he stood before coming to the bronze threshold.

For as from the sun the light goes or from the moon, such was

the glory of the high-roofed house of great-hearted Alcinoos.

……………………………………………………………………

And in his house are fifty serving women, and of these

some grind the apple-colored grain at the turn of the hand mill,

and there are those who weave the webs and who turn the distaffs,

sitting restless as leaves of the tall black poplar, and from

the cloths where it is sieved oozes the limpid olive oil.

As much as Phaiakian men are expert beyond all others

for driving a fast ship on the open sea, so their women

are skilled in weaving and dowered with wisdom bestowed by Athene,

to be expert in beautiful work, to have good character.

On the outside of the courtyard and next the doors is his orchard,

a great one, four land measures, with a fence driven all around it,

and there is the place where his fruit trees are grown tall and flourishing,

pear trees and pomegranate trees and apple trees and the flourishing olive.

Never is the fruit spoiled on these, never does it give out,

neither in winter time not summer, but always the West Wind

blowing on the fruits brings some to ripeness while he starts others.

Pear matures on pear in that place, apple upon apple,

grape cluster on grape cluster, fig upon fig. There also

he has vineyard planted that gives abundant produce,

some of it a warm area on level ground where the grapes are

left to dry in the sun, but elsewhere they are gathering others

and trampling out yet others, and in front of these are unripe

grapes that have cast off their bloom while others are darkening.

And there at the bottom strip of the field are growing orderly

rows of greens, all kinds, and these are lush through the seasons;

and there two springs distribute water, one through all the garden

space, and one on the other side jets out by the courtyard

door, and the lofty house, where townspeople come for their water.

Such are the glorious gifts of the gods at the house of Alkinoos.

Homer, The Odyssey, Book VI (Trans. R. Lattimore)

[1601] Anthony Sherley

Lorenzo Mavilis