Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Arete.
The gallery
Ulysses at the Court of Alcinous
Francesco Hayez, 1814–1815
Hayez seats the Phaeacian queen beside her husband as Odysseus weeps to Demodocus' song — Arete as the courtly presence Homer tells the stranger to clasp first.
Ulysses in the Palace of Alcinous
Jean-Jacques Lagrenée, c. 1760s–1780s
Lagrenée follows Nausicaa's counsel: Odysseus throws himself at the feet of Alcinous and Arete — the queen whose favour decides whether the stranger will be sent home.
Odysseus before Alcinous, King of the Phaeacians
August Malmström, 1853
Malmström's throne-room scene keeps Arete within the Phaeacian court that hears Odysseus — the wise queen of Scheria as the Odyssey's image of female authority at the world's edge.
On screen
Ulysses
Mario Camerini
Ludmilla Dudarova's Arete receives the shipwrecked stranger with Alcinous — Homer's counsel made flesh: clasp the queen first.
The Odyssey
Andrei Konchalovsky
Sally Plumb's Arete stands as Phaeacian queen beside Krabbé's Alcinous — the wise authority Nausicaa tells Odysseus to win.