The Odyssey Retold By Teilo Berquier

Artemis

Huntress goddess. Invoked once, when Odysseus first sees Nausicaa and tries to figure out whether she's mortal.

Artemis appears in the story only as a comparison. When Odysseus crawls out of the leaves on the Phaeacian shore, blood-crusted, naked, more animal than man, and sees Nausicaa standing among her maids by the river, he asks if she is a goddess. Artemis, perhaps. The huntress. Tall, swift, untouchable. It is the politest thing a desperate stranger can say to a king’s daughter. The line tells you what kind of presence the girl has and what kind of mind Odysseus still has even at the bottom of his fortunes. He can read a situation in seconds and find the exact word that will not get him killed. Artemis does not act in the story. She is a measure, the way you would say of someone that they walked like a queen.