Sophocles' Nausicaa

Leonardo Bononcini

• Publisher: L'Erma di Bretschneider
• Year: 2025
• Topic: Literature
• eBook ISBN:
  9788891335579
• Subtopic: Ancient & Classical Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

Odysseus meeting princess Nausicaa on the Phaeacian seashore is the core of the 6th book of Homer's Odyssey. This episode seems to have inspired some theatrical adaptations, Sophocles' Nausicaa (for which a secondary title, The Washerwomen, comes into question) possibly being the first one of them. Unfortunately, as so often happens studying Sophocles' lost works, very little of this play is known. Primarily from Athenaeus we infer that Nausicaa was an early play of Sophocles, presumably dating back to 470/68-458/56 BCE, and that Sophocles himself starred as Nausicaa, showing off some skills in ball-playing, in an adaptation of Od. VI, 99-117. From the extant fragments, both of certain and uncertain ascription, whose language shows clear Homeric echoes, the presence of Odysseus telling his (mis)adventures is assumed: a huge innovation compared to the model. Despite its fragmentary status, Sophocles' Nausicaa is an interesting play to deal with, shedding some light on Sophocles' literary debt to Homer and forcing researchers, and readers, to ask themselves puzzling questions, such as "What was the literary genre of such play, whose subject seems to be the least tragic of all? Was it a tragedy, a satyr-play or something else?".