Character
Nausicaa
Princess of the Phaeacians · daughter of Alcinous and Arete
Princess of the Phaeacians, daughter of King Alcinous and Queen Arete. She finds Odysseus washed up naked and caked in salt on her father's beach, and where her maids run she stands still and talks to him, then has him bathed, clothed and fed and tells him exactly how to win her parents' help. She is half in love with him and says so out loud to her maids; the poem lets them part without a scene.
The poem lets her want him, say so aloud, and lose him, all without punishing her for it — which is rarer in Greek literature than it sounds.