Calypso (mythology)

Calypso
Calypso, blonde-haired goddess by Jan Styka (20th century)
Abode	Ogygia
Genealogy
Parents	Atlas
Consort	Odysseus, Hermes
Children	Latinus, Nausithous, Nausinous, the Cephalonians

In Greek mythology, Calypso (/kəˈlɪpsoʊ/; Ancient Greek: Καλυψώ, romanized: Kalypsṓ, lit. '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 against his will. She promised Odysseus immortality if he would stay with her, but Odysseus preferred to return home. Eventually, after the intervention of the other gods, Calypso was forced to let Odysseus go.

The name Calypso derives from the Ancient Greek καλύπτω (kalyptō),^[2][3] meaning 'to cover', 'to conceal', or 'to hide';^[3][4] as such, her name translates to 'she who conceals' as she conceals Odysseus from the rest of the world, keeping him on her island.^[5]

According to the medieval dictionary Etymologicum Magnum, her name means 'concealing the knowledge' (from Greek: καλύπτουσα το διανοούμενον, romanized: kalýptousa to dianooúmenon), which – combined with the Homeric epithet δολόεσσα (dolóessa, meaning 'subtle' or 'wily') – justifies the reclusive character of Calypso and her island.^[6]

Calypso is generally said to be the daughter of the Titan Atlas.^[7] In the Fabulae, she is born to Pleione, the mother of the Pleiades,^[8] though this is the only source in which this parentage appears.^[9]

Hesiod and the anonymous author of the Homeric Hymn to Demeter mention either a different Calypso or possibly the same Calypso as one of the Oceanid nymphs, daughters of Tethys and Oceanus.^[10] Apollodorus includes the name Calypso in his list of Nereids, the daughters of Nereus and Doris.^[11] John Tzetzes meanwhile makes her a daughter of the sun-god Helios and the Oceanid nymph Perse, who are also the parents of Circe,^[12] perhaps due to her association with Circe; the two goddesses were sometimes confused due to their behaviour and connection to Odysseus.^[13]

According to a fragment from the Catalogue of Women, Calypso bore the Cephalonians to Hermes,^[14] as suggested by Hermes' visits to her island in the Odyssey.^[15]

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.^[16] Calypso enchants Odysseus with her singing as she moves to and from, 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.^[17] 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,^[18] though Circe is usually given as Latinus' mother.^[19] In other accounts, Calypso bore Odysseus two children, Nausithous and Nausinous.^[20]

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".^[21]

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.^[22]

According to Hyginus, Calypso killed herself because of her love for Odysseus.^[23]

In her poem Calypso Watching the Ocean, Letitia Landon describes her as eternally yearning for Odysseus' return and comments on the folly of such obsession.^[24]

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.^[25] 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.^[26]

• Calypso in Art
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  Detail from Calypso receiving Telemachus and Mentor in the Grotto by William Hamilton
• 
  Calypso by George Hitchcock (about 1906)
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  The Goddess Calypso rescues Ulysses Cornelius van Poelenburgh (1630)
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  Calypso calling heaven and earth to witness her sincere affection to Ulysses by Angelica Kauffman (18th-century)
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  Calypso receiving Telemachus and Mentor in the Grotto by William Hamilton (18th century)
• 
  Mercury ordering Calypso to release Odysseus by Gerard de Lairesse (1676–1682)
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  Odysseus as guest at the nymph Calypso by Hendrick van Balen (circa 1616)
• 
  Hermes Ordering Calypso to Release Odysseus by Gerard de Lairesse (circa 1670)
• 
  Odysseus und Kalypso by Arnold Böcklin (1883)
• 
  Calypso by Henri Lehmann (1869)
• 
  Calypso's Isle by Herbert James Draper (1897)
• 
  Ulysses on Calypso's island by Ditlev Blunck (1830)
• 
  Hermes bei Calypso und Odysseus by Hubert Maurer
• 
  Hermes orders Calypso to release Odysseus by John Flaxman (1810)
• 
  Odysseus bij Calypso (Rijksmuseum) Gérard (de) Lairesse

• 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.
• Budin, Stephanie L., Intimate Lives of the Ancient Greeks, Praeger publications, 2013, ISBN 978-0-313-38571-1.
• Bulfinch, Thomas (2018-06-21). The Age of Fable: Stories of Gods and Heroes. Floating Press, The. ISBN 978-1-77652-441-9.
• Caldwell, Richard, Hesiod's Theogony, Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Company (June 1, 1987). ISBN 978-0-941051-00-2.
• Dräger, Paul, "Calypso", in Brill's New Pauly: Encyclopaedia of the Ancient World. Antiquity, Volume 2, Ark – Cas, edited by Hubert Cancik and Helmuth Schneider, Leiden, Brill, 2003. ISBN 9004122656.
• Gagné, Renaud, Cosmography and the Idea of Hyperborea in Ancient Greece: A Philology of Worlds, Cambridge University Press, 2021, ISBN 978-1-108-83323-3.
• Grimal, Pierre, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Wiley-Blackwell, 1996, ISBN 978-0-631-20102-1. "Calypso" p. 86
• Dougherty, Carol (2001-04-05). The raft of Odysseus: the ethnographic imagination of Homer's Odyssey. Oxford : Oxford University Press, Incorporated. ISBN 978-0-19-535145-3.
• Hall, Edith, The return of Ulysses: a cultural history of Homer's Odyssey, London: I.B. Tauris. ISBN 978-1-4416-8132-4. OCLC 693781068.
• Hard, Robin, The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology", Psychology Press, 2004, ISBN 978-0-415-18636-0.
• 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.
• Hesiod, The Shield. Catalogue of Women. Other Fragments. Edited and translated by Glenn W. Most. Loeb Classical Library 503. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007, ISBN 978-0-674-99623-6.
• 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.
• Homeric Hymn to Demeter (2), 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.
• Hyginus, 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. ISBN 978-0-87220-821-6.
• Merkelbach, R., and M. L. West, Fragmenta Hesiodea, Clarendon Press Oxford, 1967. ISBN 978-0-198-14171-6.
• Scholia to Lycophron's Alexandra, marginal notes by Isaak and Ioannis Tzetzes and others from the Greek edition of Eduard Scheer (Weidmann 1881). Online version at the Topos Text Project.. Greek text available on Archive.org
• Smith, William; Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, London (1873). "Calypso"
• Van Nortwick, Thomas (2009). The unknown Odysseus: alternate worlds in Homers Odyssey. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. ISBN 978-0-472-02521-3.
• West, M. L. (1966), Hesiod: Theogony, Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-814169-6.

• Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Calypso" . Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.