The Odyssey 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. 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 spends the daytime sitting on a
headland or at the sea-shore crying, while at night he is forced to sleep with her in the cave against his will. 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.
Other narratives Homer does not mention any children by Calypso. By some accounts that came after the
Odyssey, Calypso bore Odysseus a son,
Latinus, though
Circe is usually given as Latinus' mother. In other accounts, Calypso bore Odysseus two children,
Nausithous and
Nausinous. 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". 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, the cyclops
Polyphemus. According to
Hyginus, Calypso killed herself because of her love for Odysseus. ==In literature==