The Myth of Calypso | Odysseus Trapped on Ogygia, and the Journey Home Opened by the Gods' Command

Book 5 of the Odyssey opens with a council of the gods on Olympus. Before Zeus, the goddess Athena brings up the plight of a man who, held fast on a distant island, cannot return to his homeland.

The man Athena spoke of was Odysseus, the master strategist who led the Trojan War to victory, and the island where he was held was Ogygia. The story actually reaches that island only after the gods' decision is made and a messenger crosses the sea.

The Decision First Made at the Council on Olympus

It was not Odysseus himself who first set his stagnant days in motion. It was Athena, pitying him, who raised his situation before Zeus—and that was the first step toward change.

Zeus accepts Athena's plea and makes his decision. Odysseus is to sail for twenty days on a single raft, with neither ship nor companions, until he reaches the land of the Phaeacians. The messenger god Hermes was chosen to deliver this command.

Calypso was the nymph who lived alone on that very Ogygia. How Odysseus came to wash up on this island is recounted later by Calypso herself as she argues with Hermes, but two facts are made clear from the start: he had already been staying there for a long time, and Calypso wanted to keep him by her side.

Hermes Flies to the Fragrant Island

Hermes, wearing golden sandals, skims across the sea like a cormorant and arrives at Ogygia. The island where he set foot was a place where a great fire blazed and the scent of cedar and sandalwood spread far and wide.

Around the cave grapevines grew thick, birds such as owls and ravens perched, and a spring flowing in four streams watered meadows of violet flowers. This scenery, beautiful enough to make even a god pause in admiration, was the very prison Odysseus so desperately wanted to escape.

Calypso's Protest, and a Decision She Could Not Refuse

Hearing Zeus' command from Hermes, Calypso did not nod meekly. She poured out her grievance, saying that the gods were uniquely jealous of goddesses loving mortal men.

Calypso brought up old precedents as evidence. Citing how the dawn goddess, who kept the hunter Orion at her side, ultimately lost him at the gods' hands, and how the goddess Demeter loved the mortal Iasion only to have him struck by Zeus' lightning, she protested that once again the gods disapproved of her love.

At the same time, Calypso retraced how Odysseus had come to this island in the first place. When Zeus shattered his ship with lightning and all his companions perished in the sea, he alone, clinging to the keel of the ship, was swept by the waves all the way to Ogygia; she took him in and cared for him, and resolved to one day make him an ageless, immortal body.

Yet for all her anger, Calypso had no way to defy Zeus' command. Her protest was merely a procedure for venting her feelings; the conclusion had already been settled.

Odysseus Demands an Oath, and a Path Opens Without Conditions

Calypso finally changes her attitude and goes to find Odysseus. The place where she found him was not the cave but the shore. Odysseus sat on a rock by the sea, weeping as he gazed endlessly in the direction the waves rolled in.

His days were thus split in two. By day he spent his time in tears and groans on the rocks of the shore, and by night he slept with Calypso inside the cave. That this was not a cohabitation of his own will was already evident in his expression as he gazed at the sea, longing for home.

Calypso tells him to fell tall trees and build a large raft with a deck, saying she herself will provide everything loaded on it—bread, wine, and even water.

When the person who had long tried to keep him suddenly offers to let him go, Odysseus does not simply take her at her word. Suspecting whether this might be yet another scheme to harm him, he demands that she swear by the waters of heaven, earth, and the river Styx if she truly intends to send him off.

Calypso swears on the spot. Since she swore by the name of the river Styx, which even the gods must pay a penalty for breaking, there was no longer any reason for doubt. After his long detention, for the first time a path of departure without conditions opened before Odysseus.

Calypso Compared to Penelope, and Odysseus Who Still Chose Home

Having finished the oath, the two return together to the cave. Calypso sets before Odysseus the food and drink that mortals eat, while she herself sits across from him partaking of the nectar and ambrosia of the gods.

At the meal, Calypso asks him: does he truly wish to return to his homeland and his wife as things stand—and if he knew how many hardships still lay on that path, would he not rather stay on this island and live forever, ageless, with her? She added that in looks and beauty she was in no way inferior to Penelope.

Odysseus did not retreat from these words. He answers that he knows well that Penelope falls short of her in beauty and majesty, that she is mortal while Calypso is an ageless goddess. Even so, he made clear that his desire to return home as soon as possible and see his wife again would not change.

That night the two spend the night together inside the cave. Odysseus' resolve, having been offered eternal life yet choosing his mortal wife and homeland, was already fixed, and all that remained was the departure preparations to begin the next morning.

Four Days with Axe and Adze, Until the Raft Was Built

As soon as the next morning dawned, Odysseus set to work. Taking up the bronze axe and sharp adze Calypso provided, he felled and brought down twenty trees—alder, poplar, and pine.

He smoothed the felled timber, bored holes, and joined the pieces together to raise the frame of the raft. He laid the deck, raised the mast, and even wove willow branches into a fence to hold back the waves. This work, done alone from the first axe stroke to the finish, took four full days to complete.

A Skin of Wine and New Clothes, and a Farewell Carried by a Following Wind

When the raft was complete, Calypso gathered the things to see him off one last time. She personally prepared and loaded a skin of dark wine, a larger skin of water, a pouch with meat, and clean clothes to change into.

Then she raised a gentle, warm wind to help the raft move smoothly onward. The nymph who had long tried to keep him by her side chose, in the end, to make even a following wind to send him off. And so Odysseus left Ogygia behind and set out alone onto the sea.

Poseidon Returning from Ethiopia Spots the Raft

It was Poseidon, god of the sea, who cast a shadow over the smooth voyage. Returning from distant Ethiopia, he spotted Odysseus' raft floating far off on the water.

Poseidon rages at the fact that the gods had overturned the decision while he was away. He gathers the clouds and churns the sea with his trident, driving the winds from all directions at once down upon the raft. In the storm that rushes in within an instant, the mast snaps in the middle, and the sail falls straight into the sea.

The Veil Offered by Ino, and the Choice to Abandon the Raft and Swim

As Odysseus grows desperate atop the broken raft, the sea goddess Ino appears in the form of a gull. She tells him to bind her veil around his body, abandon the raft, and swim.

At first Odysseus cannot readily believe this either. It meant giving up the visible footing of the raft and entrusting himself to a stranger goddess's veil. But when the waves crush even what remained of the raft, he finally wraps the veil around himself, leaps into the water, and begins to swim.

Two Days and Nights Adrift, Land at Last in Sight

From then on, Odysseus had to drift on the sea for two full days and nights. On the third day, as the wind died down, land came into view in the distance.

But the relief was brief: the shore before him was nothing but jagged rocks, the waves were fierce, and not even a harbor to land a ship could be seen. At the moment he nearly lost his life crashing against those rocks, he found the mouth of a river flowing into the sea, clung to that river god, and barely made his way into safe waters.

Having come ashore, Odysseus settled beneath an olive tree, heaped up dry leaves to cover his body, and fell asleep just as he was. It was the first full rest he had found after the storm and drifting that followed his departure from Ogygia. The person who finds him when he wakes from this sleep is the princess of the Phaeacians, and the story continues from there.

Calypso and Penelope: Two Women the Original Text Compared, Yet Odysseus Set Apart

As seen earlier in the cave scene, Calypso comparing herself to Penelope, saying she was not inferior in beauty, and offering immortality and agelessness are passages that actually appear in Book 5 of the Odyssey. This comparison and offer must not be invented out of thin air, nor erased as if it never happened. That said, it is likewise a fact from the same scene that Odysseus, hearing this comparison, chose his homeland and wife in the end even while acknowledging that Penelope's beauty and majesty fell short of Calypso's. Calypso remains the figure who held Odysseus back from his journey home not because the two women could not even be compared, but because, at the end of that comparison, Odysseus himself chose Penelope.

There is one more figure often confused with Calypso: Circe. Both are divine beings living on islands, but the book in which they appear and the events entangling them with Odysseus differ. The Book 10 story, in which Circe turns his men into swine and Odysseus stays with her for a year, can be found separately in the Circe myth overview.