Calypso

Zeus struck Odysseus’ ship with thunderbolts and broke it apart in mid-ocean. All his companions drowned. Odysseus held on to the keel as wind and waves carried him for nine days. During the darkness of the tenth night, the gods brought him to Ogygia, a distant island where Calypso lived alone. She was the daughter of Atlas. She took Odysseus into her home and treated him kindly.

Calypso fell in love with him and kept him on the island for years. She wanted to make him immortal, so that he would never grow old, but Odysseus could not be persuaded to remain. When the gods objected to her keeping a mortal man, Calypso answered in anger. She said that the gods were jealous whenever a goddess loved a mortal. She recalled how Artemis killed Orion after Dawn loved him, and how Zeus killed Iasion after Demeter lay with him.

Calypso then told Odysseus that he could return to his homeland, though much suffering still lay before him. She said he would stay with her and become immortal if he gave up his journey and kept house with her. She compared her own beauty with that of Penelope, the wife he longed to see. Odysseus replied that Penelope was mortal and less beautiful than Calypso, but he still wanted to go home. He said that he thought of his return every day and would endure whatever suffering came upon him at sea.

Calypso agreed to send him away of her own free will. She told him to cut beams of wood and build a large raft with an upper deck. She promised to provide bread, wine, water, and clothes, and to send a fair wind if the gods allowed it. Odysseus distrusted the offer. He feared that Calypso intended something else and said that even a well-equipped ship could scarcely make such a distant voyage, let alone a raft.