Calypso

“ There is nothing of Greek here more than of Hebrew, or of Latin, or of German. It is pure humanity.
Calypso is not a woman, but a goddess. She feeds upon ambrosia and nectar, while her maidens spread before Odysseus the food of mortals. Between her and Hermes there is recognition at first sight; for god knows god, however far apart their paths may lie. Yet the love that Calypso bears Odysseus brings this daughter of Atlas down to earth; and we may reckon her among the women of Homer. ”

“ CALYPSO—ULYSSES REACHES SOHERIA ON A RAFT.
And now, as Dawn rose from her couch beside Tithonus—harbinger of light alike to mortals and immortals—the gods met in council and with them, Jove the lord of thunder, who is their king. Thereon Minerva began to tell them of the many sufferings of Ulysses, for she pitied him away there in the house of the nymph Calypso.
7"Father Jove," said she, "and all you other gods that live in everlasting bliss, I hope there may never be such a thing as a kind and well disposed ruler any more, nor one who will govern equitably. ”

“ We did not speak for a long time after he had ended, but his confidence had touched me so nearly that I felt I owed him my heart in exchange, and it was hard not to cry out: "And now I love Calypso. Once more the far-wandered man has found the great light on a lonely shore." ”

“ Once I told you that Calypso was a land-nymph. But—time changes us all, you know—and as nobody reads the classics any longer nobody will perceive the anachronism."
"Except ourselves."
"Except ourselves, Ulysses; and we'll forgive each other." She took a step out from the shadow of the oaks' foliage into the white sunlight and turned, looking back at him. ”

“ O, if thou knewest what dreadful sufferings thou must yet endure, before ever thou reachest thy native land, thou wouldest not esteem so hardly of a goddess's offer to share her immortality with thee; nor, for a few years enjoyment of a perishing Penelope, refuse an imperishable and never-dying life with Calypso."
He replied: "Ever-honoured, great Calypso, let it not displease thee, that I a mortal man desire to see and converse again with a wife that is mortal: human objects are best fitted to human infirmities. ”

“ But now, as I stood on the little rocky platform outside the door through which I had burned my way, and looked down into the glimmering chasm beneath, and heard the fresh voice of the sea huskily rumbling and reverberating about hidden grottoes and channels, all that Calypso was to me came back with the keenness of a sword through my heart. Ah! there was my treasure—as I had known when my eyes first beheld her—compared with which that gold and silver in there, whose gleam had made me momentarily distraught, was but so much dust and ashes. ”

“ Next day Calypso brought to Ulysses carpenters' tools, and he felled trees, and made a great raft, and a mast, and sails out of canvas. In five days he had finished his [Pg 133] raft and launched it, and Calypso placed in it skins full of wine and water, and flour and many pleasant things to eat, and so they kissed for that last time and took farewell, he going alone on the wide sea, and she turning lonely to her own home. He might have lived for ever with the beautiful fairy, but he chose to live and die, if he could, with his wife Penelope. ”

“ All around him now, as the air grew sweet with the breath of orange blossoms, a subtler scent, delicately persistent, came to him on the sea-wind; and he remembered it!—the lilac perfume of China-berry in bloom; Calypso's own immortal fragrance. And, in the brilliant sunshine, there under green trees with the dome of blue above, unbidden, the shadows of the past rose up; and once more lantern-lit faces crowded through the aromatic dark; once more the fountains' haze drifted across dim lawns ”

“ It seems to pass across the sea like a sigh of winds awakened, none knows how, in summer midnight, that swells and dies far off upon moon-silvered waves. The clear human activity of Odysseus cuts the everlasting calm of Calypso like a knife, shredding the veil that hides her from the eyes of mortals. ”

“ CALYPSO TAKES PITY ON ULYSSES.
So spake he, and Calypso, that fair Goddess, shuddered and spake unto him: 'Hard are ye Gods and jealous exceeding, who ever grudge Goddesses openly to mate with men. Him I saved as he went all alone bestriding the keel of a bark, for that Zeus had crushed and cleft his swift [Pg 131] ship with a white bolt in the midst of the wine-dark deep. ”

“ But Calypso, divine one of goddesses, shuddered, and addressing him spoke winged words: "Severe are ye gods, envious above others, who grudge that goddesses should sleep openly with men, if any one has made for herself a dear husband. ”

“ I was not afraid of him or his creatures, but I did not design to be caught, and so set Calypso's heels to work. But just as I did so there came up a clatter of hoofs from the yard near by, and I knew that Creech was upon my track. Calypso flew forward like a swallow, and at the same moment the noise of a pistol spread echoes abroad, and a bullet snipped a corner from my hat. That was my signal to be gone. "Come, my girl," says I; and the roan, [223] leaping to the rowels, sped down the narrow pathway in a gallop. ”

“ Odysseus was by nature a very shrewd and cautious man, and he feared that Calypso was contriving some mischief against him, in revenge for his coldness. He looked at her doubtfully, and answered: "I fear thee, nymph, and I mistrust thy purpose. How shall a man cross this dreadful gulf, where no ship is ever seen, on a raft? And though that were possible, I will never leave thee against thy will. Swear to me now that thou intendest me no harm." ”

“ She is Goddess of this Island, where she rules; but she is a lesser deity who has to be subordinated to the Olympians, as nature must be put under spirit. The Greek deified nature, not being able to diabolize it; still he knew that it must be ruled and transmuted by mind. Thus Calypso is a Goddess, inferior, confined to one locality, but having sensuous beauty as nature has. She, without ethical content, as purely physical, stands in the way of institutions, notably the Family; she seduces the man, and holds him by his senses, by his passion, till he rise out of her sway. ”

“ The hour was still early; of course too unconventional to leave cards on the Cardross family, even too early for a business visit; but he thought he would stroll past the villa, the white walls of which he had dimly seen the evening before. Besides his Calypso was there. Alas! for Calypso. Yet his heart tuned up a trifle as he thought of seeing her so soon again.
And so, a somewhat pensive but wholly attractive and self-confident young opportunist in white flannels, he sauntered through the hotel gardens and out along the dazzling shell-road. ”

“ I had not censored the Homeric gods, as Jerry's father had commanded, and my temerity led to difficulties. It began with Calypso and Ulysses and did not even end when Dido was left alone upon the shores of Carthage.
"I don't understand it at all," he said one day with a wrinkled brow, "how a man of the caliber of Ulysses could stay so long the prisoner of Calypso, a woman, when he wanted to go home. It's a pretty shabby business for a hero and a demigod. A woman!" he sneered, "I'd like to see any woman keep me sitting in a cave if I wanted to go anywhere!" ”

“ I felt for the first time that loss of one’s country is immortal, and that travels only produce fatigue of body and mind. Now I was enabled to comprehend how Calypso, arrayed in all her charms, could not tempt Ulysses to abandon his poor but much-loved Ithaca, or to relinquish the noble ambition which induced him to return and behold once more the smoke rising from his chimney. ”

“ In reply Jupiter sends Mercury to bid Calypso provide her unwilling guest with the means to leave her shores. Donning his golden sandals, the messenger-god flits to the Island of Ogygia, enters Calypso's wonderful cave, and delivers his message. Although reluctant to let Ulysses depart, Calypso—not daring oppose the will of Jupiter—goes in quest of her guest. Finding him gazing tearfully in the direction of home, she promises to supply him with the means to build a raft which, thanks to the gods, will enable him to reach Ithaca. ”

“ Down on the timbers Ulysses dropped, and so sat rowing with his hands, and the wind drifted him at last to a shelving beach of an island.
Here dwelt a kind of fairy, called Calypso, who found Ulysses nearly dead on the beach, and was kind to him, and kept him in her cave, where he lived for seven long years, always desiring to leave the beautiful fairy and return to Ithaca and his wife Penelope. But no ship of men ever came near that isle, which is the central place of all the seas, and he had no ship, and no men to sail and row. ”

“ No; that conscious superiority does not help them at all. As it is now, so it was in the ancient days. Did it much avail Calypso, that in her realm there was wealth of earth's fairest fruits and flowers, while in Ithaca it was barren all—that ages passed over her own divine beauty, leaving no furrow on her brow, no line of silver in her hair, while with every year the colour faded from the cheek, and the fire dried out of the eyes of her mortal rival—if her guest still persisted in repining? ”

“ With an ill grace Calypso promised to fulfil the commands of Jove; and, Mercury departing, she went to find Ulysses, where he sat outside the grotto, not knowing of the heavenly message, drowned in discontent, not seeing any human probability of his ever returning home.
She said to him: "Unhappy man, no longer afflict yourself with pining after your country, but build you a ship, with which you may return home; since it is the will of the gods: who doubtless as they are greater in power than I, are greater in skill, and best can tell what is fittest for man. ”

“ Gerald added hastily, as became a Greek scholar.
“Moreover, the sun’s daughter, fair-haired Circe, and bright Queen Calypso, the divine one of goddesses, these also detained me rather more amiably. I embraced them; they did not find me slothful in their beds. For they were goddesses, as quick in anger as they were in lust. It is not prudent to deny a goddess. From the fond arms of these immortals I passed on toward my desired goal. Yet nobody is always prudent. ”

“ It may seem probable that the Irish land of women also has some connection with the amorous, beautiful-haired nymph Calypso’s island of Ogygia, far off in the sea, in the Odyssey [v. 135 ff.; vii. 254 ff.] . Just as the men in the Irish legends neither grow older nor die when they come to the land of women, and as the queen of the country will not let the men go again (cf. Maelduin) , so Calypso wished to keep her Odysseus, and to make him “an immortal man, ever young to eternity.” ”

“ We see that Ulysses in spite of all blandishments of the Goddess and momentary weakness of himself, was ready for its removal; in his heart he has overcome Calypso, and wishes to get back to his institutional life in Family and State. Such a man must return, the Gods must be on his side, else they are not Gods. According to the Greek conception, Calypso is a subordinate deity who must be put down by the Olympians; appetite is not a devil, but a lower good, which must be adjusted to the higher. ”

“ How, then, can Calypso be anything else than death, as she dwells there in her cave, by the shores of the sea? How can Odysseus’ life with her, his sleep in her cave, be anything else than an image of dying? The gods have determined that the hero shall not remain in this mortal sleep for ever; so Hermes is sent to command Calypso to let Odysseus go. Hermes is the god whose mission it is to lead souls down to the realm [Pg 253] of Hades—the psychopomp, as in this office he is called. But sometimes he may come upon an opposite message, to restore men to life ”

“ He builds himself a boat on the island, by Calypso's instructions, and when all is ready, she stores it plentifully with food and wine, and gives him directions for his voyage. He launches and sets sail; but the angry god of the sea (irate especially against Ulysses for having blinded his son, the giant Polyphemus, as we shall learn hereafter) stirs winds and waves against him, wrecks his bark, and leaves him clinging for life to a broken spar. One of the sea-nymphs, Ino, takes pity on him, and gives him a charmed scarf—so long as he wears it his life is safe. ”

“ It was all over, and for all time, between him and Annie Eliza. His awakening may have been a rude and chastening one, but through it he learned, as other warriors had learned, that women cannot make up all a man's world, that Calypso cannot always hold out her softer charms to a Ulysses, old or new, that the tawniest-haired Cleopatra cannot always bind a Cæsar in slavish bonds. He hungered once more for a world of arms and men, for the turbulence of his own kind, for the dust and battle of real boyhood! ”

“ He formed a raft from the fragments of his ship, and was at length cast by the waves upon the island of the nymph Calypso. This goddess entertained Ulys ́ses with much kindness, and even offered to share her immortality with the hero, if he would consent to forget Ithaca and dwell forever in her happy island. Jupiter, however, sent Mercury to Calypso, with the command that she should dismiss Ulys ́ses, and provide him with all that was necessary for his homeward voyage. ”

“ We shall find that Calypso is gentler and more dignified; a sweeter and more gracious creature than Circe. There is nothing sinister or malign about her; and if she loves Odysseus, and strives to keep him at her side, it is that she may make him immortal, like herself. She has no evil intent toward him; and when the messenger of Zeus bids her to release him, she sets herself the task of helping him away. Odysseus has not now to pay a gruesome penalty for willing bondage, as when he left Circe in Aeaea; but wins his way by Calypso’s aid to the friendly land of Phæacia. ”