In
Greek mythology, Calypso (/kəˈlɪpsoʊ/;
Greek: Καλυψώ, "she who conceals")[1] was a
nymph who lived on the island of
Ogygia, where, according to
Homer's Odyssey, she detained
Odysseus for seven years. She promised Odysseus immortality if he would stay with her, but Odysseus preferred to return home.
Etymology
The name "Calypso" may derive from the
Ancient Greekκαλύπτω (kalyptō),[2] meaning "to cover", "to conceal", or "to hide".[3] According to Etymologicum Magnum, her name means "concealing the knowledge" (καλύπτουσα το διανοούμενον, kalýptousa to dianooúmenon), which – combined with the
Homeric epithetδολόεσσα (dolóessa, meaning "subtle" or "wily") – justifies the reclusive character of Calypso and her island. An alternative explanation is that Calypso derives from versions of "Calí" + "Ópsis", meaning "Beautiful Sight".[citation needed]
Family
Calypso is generally said to be the daughter of the
TitanAtlas.[4] Her mother is mostly unnamed, but
Hyginus wrote that it was
Pleione, mother of the
Pleiades.[5]Hesiod, and the
Homeric Hymn to
Demeter, mention either a different Calypso or possibly the same Calypso as one of the
Oceanid daughters of
Tethys and
Oceanus.[6]Apollodorus includes the name Calypso in his list of
Nereids, the daughters of
Nereus and
Doris.[7]John Tzetzes makes her a daughter of
Helios and the Oceanid nymph
Perse, the parents of
Circe,[8] perhaps due to her association with Circe; the two goddesses were sometimes confused due to their behaviour and connection to Odysseus.[9] According to a fragment from the Catalogue of Women, Calypso bore the
Cephalonians to
Hermes[10] as suggested by Hermes' visits to her island in the Odyssey.[11]
Mythology
In
Homer's Odyssey, Calypso tries to keep the fabled Greek hero
Odysseus on her island to make him her immortal husband, while he also gets to enjoy her sensual pleasures forever. According to Homer, Calypso kept Odysseus prisoner by force at
Ogygia for seven years.[12] Calypso enchants Odysseus with her singing as she moves to and fro, weaving on her loom with a golden shuttle.
Odysseus comes to wish for circumstances to change. He can no longer bear being separated from his wife,
Penelope, and wants to tell Calypso. He is seen sitting on a headland crying, and at night he is forced to have sexual intercourse with her against his will.[13] His patron goddess
Athena asks
Zeus to order the release of Odysseus from the island; Zeus orders the messenger Hermes to tell Calypso to set Odysseus free, for it was not Odysseus's destiny to live with her forever. She angrily comments on how the gods hate goddesses having affairs with mortals.
Calypso provides Odysseus with an axe, drill, and
adze to build a boat. Calypso leads Odysseus to an island where he can chop down trees and make planks for his boat. Calypso also provides him with wine, bread, clothing, and more materials for his boat. The goddess then sets wind at his back when he sets sail. After seven years Odysseus has built his boat and leaves Calypso.
Homer does not mention any children by Calypso. By some accounts that came after the Odyssey, Calypso bore Odysseus a son,
Latinus,[14] though
Circe is usually given as Latinus' mother.[15] In other accounts, Calypso bore Odysseus two children,
Nausithous and
Nausinous.[16]
The story of Odysseus and Calypso has some close resemblances to the interactions between
Gilgamesh and
Siduri in the Epic of Gilgamesh in that "the lone female plies the inconsolable hero-wanderer with drink and sends him off to a place beyond the sea reserved for a special class of honoured people" and "to prepare for the voyage he has to cut down and trim timbers."[17]
A fragment from the Catalogue of Women, erroneously attributed to Hesiod, claimed that Calypso detained Odysseus for years as a favour to
Poseidon, the sea-god who detested Odysseus for blinding his son
Polyphemus.[18]
According to
Hyginus, Calypso killed herself because of her love for Odysseus.[19]
Philosophers have written about the meaning of Calypso in the world of ancient Greece. Ryan Patrick Hanley commented on the interpretation of Calypso in Les Aventures de Télémaque written by
Fénelon. Hanley says that the story of Calypso illustrates the link between
Eros and pride.[21]Theodor Adorno and
Max Horkheimer brought attention to the combination of power over fate and the sensibility of "
bourgeois housewives" in the depiction of Calypso.[22]
Gallery
Calypso in Art
Calypso, blonde-haired goddess by
Jan Styka (20th century)
^Hesiod, Theogony359;
Homeric Hymn2.422. According to Caldwell, p. 49 n. 359, the Hesiod Oceanid is "probably not" the same; see also West 1966, p. 267 359. καὶ ἱμερόεσσα Καλυψώ; Hard,
p. 41.
^E., Bell, Robert (1993). Women of classical mythology : a biographical dictionary. New York: Oxford University Press.
ISBN978-0-19-507977-7.
OCLC26255961.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (
link)
^See
Hesiod, Theogony1019, Sir James George Frazer in his notes to Apollodorus,
E.7.24, says that these verses "are probably not by Hesiod but have been interpolated by a later poet of the Roman era in order to provide the Latins with a distinguished Greek ancestry".
^Dalley, S. (1989) Myths from Mesopotamia. Oxford University Press, Oxford, NY.
Apollodorus, Apollodorus, The Library, with an English Translation by Sir James George Frazer, F.B.A., F.R.S. in 2 Volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Dougherty, Carol (2001-04-05). The raft of Odysseus: the ethnographic imagination of Homer’s Odyssey. Oxford [England]: Oxford University Press, Incorporated.
ISBN978-0-19-535145-3.
Hall, Edith (2008). The return of Ulysses: a cultural history of Homer’s Odyssey. London: I.B. Tauris.
ISBN978-1-4416-8132-4.
OCLC693781068.
Hard, Robin, The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology", Psychology Press, 2004,
ISBN978-0-415-18636-0.
Hesiod, Theogony, in The Homeric Hymns and Homerica with an English Translation by Hugh G. Evelyn-White, Cambridge, Massachusetts., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1914.
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Homer, The Odyssey with an English Translation by A.T. Murray, PH.D. in two volumes. Cambridge, Massachusetts., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1919.
Online version at the Perseus Digital Library.
Hyginus, Gaius Julius, Fabulae in Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Fabulae: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology, Translated, with Introductions by R. Scott Smith and Stephen M. Trzaskoma, Hackett Publishing Company, 2007.
ISBN978-0-87220-821-6.