You gods are hard and jealous — you resent goddesses sleeping openly with men. So when Dawn took Orion, Artemis killed him in Ortygia. So when Demeter lay with Iasion in the thrice-plowed fallow, Zeus killed him with a thunderbolt. So now you resent my having a mortal. I saved him when Zeus’s bolt shattered his ship in the wine-dark sea.
I loved him and said I would make him immortal. But since no god can cross Zeus’s will — let him go. I have no ships to escort him, but I will advise him gladly so he may reach home unharmed.” Hermes warned her to regard Zeus’s wrath and left.
She found Odysseus on the shore, eyes never dry — sweet life ebbing as he mourned for return, since the nymph no longer pleased him. By night he slept beside her under force, unwilling beside one willing; by day he sat on the rocks breaking his heart in tears, looking over the barren sea.
“Unhappy man,” she said, “mourn no longer. Do not let your life waste away. I am ready even now to send you off with a good will. Cut long timbers with bronze and fit a wide raft with a high deck. I will put in bread and water and red wine, and clothes, and send a following wind — if the gods who hold wide heaven are willing. They are stronger than I to plan and accomplish.”
Odysseus shuddered: she must be planning something else, to send him on a raft over that dread gulf — not even balanced ships cross it lightly. He would not board unless she swore a great oath to plan no other evil against him. Calypso smiled, stroked him, and swore by earth and heaven and the down-flowing water of Styx. Her mind was just; the heart in her breast was not of iron but compassionate.