The significance of the meeting of Odysseus and Princess Nausicaa in The Odyssey is a very important factor to King Alcinous. First of all, Kings don’t just let a complete stranger in their halls and give them great wealth for no reason at all. There has to be some deciding reason, which in this case was that his daughter met and trusted this man.
Also, The King didn’t just give Odysseus a place in his gorgeous house, he let Odysseus go about his kingdom, which, as the book emphasizes, was not friendly to people who were not from the kingdom or whom they had never seen before. So unfriendly, in fact, that the goddess Athena had cloaked him in a “very fine mist” so that he could get to the King’s house without being seen by the townsfolk. This also shows that the king had a strong relationship with his daughter, that he would let this man he had never seen before in his kingdom. This likely was the deciding factor for the king in remaining patient with this stranger in what otherwise could have been a dangerous situation. For all the king knows, this Is a wandering thief who somehow tricked the girl into thinking that he was lost and needed help! Come to think of it, maybe the king does trust his daughter a little more than he should… As a conclusion, the meeting between Odysseus and Nausicaa was very important.
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