In Greek mythology, Calypso (; )Grimal, s.v. Calypso. 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.
Etymology The name Calypso derives from the Greek (), meaning , , or ;Entry καλύπτω at LSJ as such, her name translates to .
According to the medieval dictionary Etymologicum Magnum, her name means (from ).
Family Calypso is generally said to be the daughter of the Titan Atlas.Homer, Odyssey 1.14, 1.51–54 & 7.245; Apollodorus, Epitome 7.24. She is sometimes referred to as Atlantis (Ατλαντίς), which means the daughter of Atlas, see the entry Ατλαντίς in Liddell & Scott, and also Hesiod, Theogony 938 In the Fabulae, she is born to Pleione, the mother of the Pleiades,Hyginus, Fabulae Preface 16 though this is the only source in which this parentage appears.Dräger, para. 1.
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.Hesiod, Theogony 359; Homeric Hymn 2.422. According to Caldwell, p. 49 n. 359, the Hesiod Oceanid is "probably not" the same; see also West 1966, p. 267 359. καὶ ἱμερόεσσα Καλυψώ; Hard, p. 41. Apollodorus includes the name Calypso in his list of Nereids, the daughters of Nereus and Doris.Apollodorus, 1.2.7 John Tzetzes meanwhile makes her a daughter of the sun-god Helios and the Oceanid nymph Perse, who are also the parents of Circe;Tzetzes on Lycophron, 174. perhaps due to her association with Circe and their behaviour and connection to Odysseus, the two goddesses were sometimes confused.
According to a fragment from the Catalogue of Women, Calypso bore the Cephalonians to Hermes,Hesiod, Catalogue of Women fr. 98.30–31 Most (p. 173) [= fr. 150.30–31 Merkelbach-West]. as suggested by Hermes's visits to her island in the Odyssey.Gagné, p. 232.
Mythology The Odyssey
In Homer's Odyssey, Calypso attempts 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.Homer, Odyssey 7.282 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.Homer, Odyssey 5.151-155 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,Apollodorus, Epitome 7.24 though Circe is usually given as Latinus's mother.Hesiod, Theogony 1011 In other accounts, Calypso bore Odysseus two children, Nausithous and Nausinous.See Hesiod, Theogony 1019, Sir James George Frazer in his notes to Apollodorus, Epitome 7.24, says that these verses "are probably not by Hesiod but have been interpolated by a later poet of the Roman era in order to provide the Latins with a distinguished Greek ancestry".
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.Budin, p. 230
According to Hyginus, Calypso killed herself because of her love for Odysseus.Hyginus, Fabulae 243.7
In literature 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.
In Arthur Quiller-Couch's comic novel, "The astonishing History of Troy Town", Calypso is the younger of Admiral Buzza's daughters, named after his ship.
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. 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.
In film and other media
Calypso appears in the 1905 film L'Île de Calypso. Calypso appears in the 1911 film L'Odissea. Kyra Bester portrayed Calypso in the 1968 miniseries Odissea (dal Poema di Omero). Branca De Camargo portrayed an unnamed woman whom the director later identified as Calypso in the 1989 film Nostos: The Return. Vanessa Williams portrayed Calypso in the 1997 miniseries The Odyssey. Naomie Harris portrayed Tia Dalma, who is later revealed to be Calypso, in the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise. Charlize Theron portrays Calypso in the 2026 film The Odyssey.
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Notes
References 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, . Bulfinch, Thomas (2018-06-21). The Age of Fable: Stories of Gods and Heroes. Floating Press, The. . Caldwell, Richard, Hesiod's Theogony, Focus Publishing/R. Pullins Company (June 1, 1987). . 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. . Gagné, Renaud, Cosmography and the Idea of Hyperborea in Ancient Greece: A Philology of Worlds, Cambridge University Press, 2021, . Grimal, Pierre, The Dictionary of Classical Mythology, Wiley-Blackwell, 1996, . "Calypso" p. 86 Dougherty, Carol (2001-04-05). The raft of Odysseus: the ethnographic imagination of Homer's Odyssey. Oxford [England]: Oxford University Press, Incorporated. . Hall, Edith, The return of Ulysses: a cultural history of Homer's Odyssey, London: I.B. Tauris. . . Hard, Robin, The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology: Based on H.J. Rose's "Handbook of Greek Mythology", Psychology Press, 2004, . 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, . 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. . Merkelbach, R., and M. L. West, Fragmenta Hesiodea, Clarendon Press Oxford, 1967. . Scholia to Lycophron's Alexandra, marginal notes by Isaak and Ioannis Tzetzes and others from the Greek edition of Eduard Scheer (Weidmann 1881). 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. . West, M. L. (1966), Hesiod: Theogony, Oxford University Press. .
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