Homer’sThe Odyssey

For four books we have heard about Odysseus without seeing him — a name invoked at every table, wept over by his wife, sought by his son. Now the poem turns. The man himself appears at last, and when we find him, he is weeping.

But first, the gods. Athena stands before the council of Olympus and makes her case again. How long will Zeus allow a good man to rot on a hidden island while the suitors devour his house? Zeus agrees. He sends Hermes, the swift messenger, to the island of Ogygia with a simple command: Let the man go.

Hermes puts on his golden sandals — the ones that carry him over sea and land alike — takes up his wand, and flies. He skims the waves like a seabird, dipping low, until the distant island rises green from the water.

“Even a god who came to that place would gaze and feel his heart beat with delight.”

Hermes finds Ogygia and stops. Even a god can be struck by this place. A cave mouth draped in grapevines. Alder, black poplar, and fragrant cypress growing thick around the entrance. Owls, hawks, and sea-crows nest in the branches. A garden of meadow-grass, parsley, and violet stretches to the cliffs. Four springs run in four directions. And from inside the cave comes the smell of burning cedarwood and the sound of a woman singing.

Calypso sits at her loom, singing as she weaves with a golden shuttle. She sees Hermes and knows at once why he has come. Gods always recognise each other.

She gives Hermes a seat, ambrosia, and nectar. Then he delivers Zeus’s command. You have a man here. He must go home.

Calypso is furious. Not at the command, but at the injustice. You gods are cruel, she says. Male gods take mortal lovers — Zeus with Demeter, Orion with Dawn — and nobody intervenes. But when a goddess loves a mortal man, you come with your orders and your golden wands. She saved Odysseus from the sea. She fed him, clothed him, offered him immortality. And now she must give him up.

But she will obey. Even Calypso does not defy Zeus.

And where is Odysseus while gods and nymphs negotiate his fate? He is where he always is. Sitting on the rocks at the edge of the sea, staring at the horizon, weeping. Every day the same. He sleeps in Calypso’s cave at night because he has no choice, but every morning he goes down to the shore and lets the hours pour into the water with his tears.

Calypso finds him there and tells him he may go. But first she offers him everything a mortal can dream of: Stay with me. I will make you immortal. You will never grow old, never die. I am more beautiful than your wife — how could a mortal woman compare with a goddess?

Odysseus answers carefully. He knows you do not insult a goddess.

“I know that Penelope is mortal, and you are not. I know she is less tall, less beautiful. But I want to go home. And if some god wrecks me again on the wine-dark sea — I will endure it. I have a heart that is well used to suffering.”

This is the choice at the centre of the entire poem. What would you choose?

Odysseus builds his raft in four days. Calypso gives him an axe, an adze, tools he knows how to use. He fells twenty trees, trims the planks, drills the joinings, sets a mast and a rudder and a sail. She fills the raft with bread, wine, and water, and sends a gentle wind.

For seventeen days he sails by the stars, keeping the Bear on his left as Calypso told him. On the eighteenth day, the mountains of Phaeacia rise on the horizon. He is close.

Then Poseidon sees him.

The god of the sea is returning from the land of the Ethiopians. He looks down and sees Odysseus — sailing free, almost to shore. So the gods changed their minds while I was away. Poseidon takes his trident and calls the winds. East, west, south, north — all of them at once. The sky goes black. The waves pile into mountains. The raft spins like a leaf.

In the chaos, a sea-nymph surfaces: Ino, who was once a mortal woman and knows what it is to suffer. She gives Odysseus her immortal veil. Wrap this around your chest, abandon the raft, and swim. It will save you. Then she dives and vanishes.

Arrange the events of Odysseus’s escape in order.

Did you follow the voyage?

Five questions from Ogygia and the open sea. Answer to see where each one leads.