Odysseus and Calypso #odyssey

Calypso: the nymph who held Odysseus captive for seven years and the episode where Homer's Odyssey actually begins. When the poem opens, Odysseus isn't journeying home yet. He's trapped on the island of Ogygia, held by the nymph Calypso, who has kept him as her lover for seven years and offered him immortality if he stays. It's the gods who intervene: Athena appeals to Zeus on his behalf, and Zeus sends Hermes to command Calypso to release him. She obeys, but not without protest pointing out how rarely a mortal man is offered what she offered him. Odysseus builds a raft with her help and sails alone, setting the rest of the poem in motion. This is the episode that frames the entire Odyssey: not the adventures already behind him, but the return still ahead. #theodyssey #calypso #greekmythology #mythology #epic