Character

Calypso

Nymph of Ogygia · Odysseus's captor for seven years

Calypso seated on the rocks reaching toward Odysseus, who sits turned away with his face in his hands beside a half-built raft.
Calypso seated on the rocks reaching toward Odysseus, who sits turned away with his face in his hands beside a half-built raft.

The nymph who keeps Odysseus on her island for seven years, wanting him for a husband and offering to make him ageless and immortal if he will stay. He spends his days on the shore weeping to get back to a mortal wife who will grow old. Ordered by the gods to release him, she points out with some justice that they never begrudge a male god his mortal lover — then gives him tools, timber and provisions, and lets him go.

She makes the poem's sharpest complaint about divine double standards: gods take mortal lovers constantly, and no one begrudges them — until the god is a woman.

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