"But I shrink from all our sea-dogs’ nasty gossip.
Some old salt might mock us behind our backs –
we have our share of insolent types in town
and one of the coarser sort, spying us, might say,
‘Now who’s that tall, handsome stranger Nausicaa has in tow?
Where’d she light on him? Her husband-to-be, just wait!’"
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 6, lines 299-304. Nausicaa wonders what some of the gossips would say about her walking into town together with Odysseus. They might mistake the stranger for her husband-to-be, she suggests. To avoid scandal, she decides that she and her maids will walk to her father’s palace ahead of him.