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Kalypso answers Hermes, who has been sent by Zeus to tell her to release Odysseus:
"So now, you gods, you resent it in me that I keep beside me
a man, since Zeus with a cast of the shining thunderbolt
had shattered his fast ship midway in the wine-blue water.
Then all the rest of his excellent companions perished,
but the wind and the curent carried him here and here they drove him,
and I gave him my love and cherished him, and I had hopes also
that I could make him immortal and all his days to be endless.
But since there is no way for another god to elude the purpose
of aegis bearing Zeus or bring it to nothing, let him go,
let him go, if he himself is asking for this and desires it,
out on the barren sea; but I will not give him conveyance,
for I have not any ships by me nor any companions
who can convey him back across the sea's wide ridges;
but I will freely give him my counsel and hold back nothing,
so that all without harm he can come back to his own country."
Then in turn the courier Argeiphontes answered her:
"Then send him accordingly on his way, and beware of the anger
of Zeus, lest he hold a grudge hereafter and rage against you."
So spoke powerful Argeiphontes, and then he left her,
while she, the queenly nymph, when she had been given the message
from Zeus, set out searching after great-hearted Odysseus,
and found him sitting on the seashore, and his eyes were never
wiped dry of tears, and the sweet lifetime was draining out of him,
as he wept for a way home, since the nymph was no longer pleasing
to him. By nights he would lie beside her, of necessity,
in the hollow caverns, against his will, by one who was willing,
but all the days he would sit upon the rocks, at the seaside,
breaking his heart in tears and lamentation and sorrow
as weeping tears he looked out over the barren water.
She, bright among divinities, stood near and spoke to him:
"Poor man, no longer mourn here beside me nor yet your lifetime
fade away, since now I will send you on, with a good will.
So come, cut long timbers with a bronze axe and join them
to make a wide raft, and fashion decks that will be on the upper
side, to carry you over the misty face of the water." |
