The seat of the Phaeacian kings. Bronze walls that catch torchlight and hold it. Golden doors on burnished posts. On the threshold, two dogs cast in gold and silver, tireless guards never made for any need. In the courtyard, orchards bear pear and apple and fig in every season, the fruit ripening one season into the next. Inside, the lords of Phaeacia feast at long tables. Odysseus comes through the crowd hidden in Athena’s mist, kneels at Queen Arete’s feet, and only then does the mist fall from his shoulders. The hall goes silent. He sits in the ashes by the hearth with his head bowed until the king takes his hand and raises him into a chair. The palace is the picture of what wealth looks like when it has not been bought with siege or murder. Music, dance, hospitality, gifts given without calculation. It is the cleanest house in the entire story, and Odysseus arrives at it in rags. By the time he leaves, he will have wept openly while a bard sings of Troy, hurled the heaviest discus past every Phaeacian mark, and told the whole story of his wanderings.
The Palace of Alcinous
Bronze walls, golden doors, gold and silver guard dogs. Inside, a hall full of feasting lords. Outside, orchards in every season.