Seven Years in Calypso’s Love Nest

 

  Seven Years in Calypso’s Love Nest

As is the case with most things, there are two sides to every story and usually the truth is found somewhere in the middle. Such is the case with the story of Odysseus and Calypso. Was the hero a willing participant in a seven year tryst in Calypso’s love nest, or was he a reluctant captive who desperately wanted to escape? Let us consider both sides of the argument.

Scholars and commentators are always going on about the trials, tribulations and hardships suffered by Odysseus during his 10 year long journey home from Troy to Ithaca. What nonsense! Odysseus spent less than 2 years at sea and the other 8+ years he spent snuggled up in the beds of Calypso and Circe. More a case of ‘hardness’ rather than ‘hardship’, methinks. While his faithful wife Penelope was back home fending off 108 suitors and trying her best to preserve his livelihood, this adulterous scallywag was getting his rocks off and living the life of Riley with whatever floozy would take him on, feed him and bed him. It sounds like his nostos and his oikos were just afterthoughts to his peos.

On the other hand, there are those who say that Odysseus reluctantly endured the nymph’s forced attentions for seven years and though he physically complied with her nightly demands, he spent his days weeping miserably on the shore, gazing out over the deep and longing for Penelope and Ithaca.

He was sitting down weeping by the seashore, as was his wont, groaning and weeping and with his soul overcome with grief as he gazed over the barren sea shedding tears.

There are some who even make the argument that Odysseus was not an adulterer in the strictest sense of the word, since he was just obeying the commands of a divine being, and not to have complied would have been considered sinful for a mortal. The good doctor (PhD Classics) to whom I am married suggests that this is the type of argument that only a man could make.

So who was this seductive and alluring creature named Calypso who managed to keep our wandering hero in her thrall for 7 years? In Greek mythology, Calypso, whose name means ‘she who conceals’, was a powerful and beautiful nymph who lived on the paradise island of Ogygia, thought by many commentators to be the island of Gozo, Malta. She is said to be the daughter of the Titan Atlas and Pleione, the mother of the Pleiades. Other references suggest that she was a Nereid, one of the Oceanid nymphs and the daughter of Tethys and Oceanus, but Homer indicates that she was indeed the daughter of Atlas. Homer described Calypso’s island and home as being so beautiful and luxurious that, there even an immortal god might come and gaze and marvel and be joyful at heart.

We learn from the lips of the goddess Athena what happened to Odysseus and how he fared at the hands of his captor:

He suffers great pain and lives on the island in the halls of the nymph Calypso and she restrains him there and he is unable to return to his fatherland for he has no ships with oars and no comrades to help him make his way over the broad expanse of the sea.

But what was Calypso’s motivation in restraining Odysseus and keeping him captive on the island of Ogygia? Simply stated, Calypso fell in love with Odysseus and treated him as her husband. She made a deal with him that he would retain his youth and achieve immortality if he stayed with her forever. She was highly possessive of her mortal lover and voiced her displeasure when the god Hermes told her that Zeus had ordered her to allow Odysseus to return home. She complained about the double standard that allowed male gods to have mortal lovers without interference, but female goddesses were not granted the same rights. She offered several examples as proof.

You gods are cruel and jealous of all others, seeing that you disapprove of goddesses mating with men openly and taking a dear friend as a bedfellow … and now you are jealous of me you gods, that I should take a man to my side.

Calypso was powerless to resist Zeus and so she consented to Odysseus leaving, although she said that she was limited in the kind of help that she could provide.

But since it is not possible for any god to slip past or avoid the will of the aegis-bearing Zeus, let that man go on his way over the restless sea if that is what Zeus urges and commands. But I cannot help him on his way for I have no ships with oars or companions to send him over the broad back of the sea. But I will freely counsel him and not conceal anything so that he may return unharmed to his native land.

But Calypso, saddened in her heart, did point out to him how he might construct a ship from the trees in her forest and indicated that she would do her best to outfit him for his journey home and bend to the will of the gods.

Do not cry any longer here, unhappy man, and do not let your life slip away in grief, for I am now willing in my heart to send you on your way. Go now and cut tall beams with an axe and make a broad raft and fashion a half-deck above it so that it can carry you across the dark sea. On the raft I will place bread and water and red wine to satisfy you and keep hunger away. I will dress you in garments and I will send a fair wind behind you, in order that you may return home unhurt to your native land, if it is indeed the will of the gods who rule the wide heavens, for they are stronger than me in what they plan and what they can do.

But Odysseus suspected that the nymph was simply laying a trap for him and that things would turn out disastrously if he followed her suggestions. Much to her dismay, her lover extracted a solemn oath from her that all was on the up and up. It was obvious that she loved him dearly and was indeed sorry to see him leave. She wished him only the best.

You are a wicked man and your thoughts are never idle that you would have thought of such a thing as that. So let the earth be my witness and the broad heavens above and the descending flow of the River Styx, which is the greatest and most dreaded oath of the blessed gods, that I am not planning any new mischief that will be hurtful to you. I have plans in my mind and will advise you in such a way as I would advise myself if I were in your position. I have a righteous mind and compassion in my heart, not a heart made of iron.

Calypso told him that it was not fair for a goddess to compete with a mortal and therefore she would not compare herself to Penelope. Given his response, it seems that Odysseus was reluctant to leave, but we do not know if his reluctance stemmed from abandoning this ravishing beauty or giving up on eternal youth and immortality. In any case, returning home seems to have been more important to him that getting back to his wife. He and Calypso had one last go in bed before he left, the randy old bastard! (And the two of them went into the innermost part of the hollow cave and took pleasure in their love, cuddled up beside each other.)

Mighty goddess, do not be angry with me for I know that Penelope is not as pretty to behold as you are, for she is but a mortal and you are a goddess and immortal. But in spite of this, I long every day to see my home and to see the day of my return there. And if some god will strike me again while I am on the wine-dark sea, then I will accept that, because I have in my breast a heart which bears much grief. Before this time I have suffered many woes in war and upon the sea, so let this just be added to that list.

Despite the good times that Odysseus spent with Calypso on Ogygia, his loyalty to his wife and to Ithaca ultimately prevailed. His choice reaffirmed a major theme in the epic that a mortal life, even with all its challenges and eventual death, is much more meaningful than a boring immortality spent alone and without loved ones. By choosing a mortal life with his family over eternal youth with a goddess, Odysseus affirmed his humanity. His steadfastness proved his heroic virtue and in the same vein, the fact that Penelope was steadfast throughout, perhaps rendered her even more heroic than her husband. When they reconnected in their olive-wood marriage bed, we know that Penelope had forgiven him for his transgressions, and perhaps we can too.