Far out in the sea lay Ogygia, where Calypso, Atlas’s daughter, lived alone. Zeus had shattered Odysseus’s ship; his crew drowned; he clung to the keel nine days and on the tenth night the gods cast him on her shore. She took him in with kindness and wanted to make him deathless and unaging, but he would not consent.
He stayed seven years and watered the clothes she gave him with tears. In the eighth year she sent him off — whether Zeus had ordered it or she had changed her mind — on a well-stocked raft with a fair warm wind. Seventeen days he sailed; on the eighteenth he saw their mountains and was glad.
Poseidon would not let him pass. He raised a storm that broke the raft. Odysseus swam until current and wind brought him to their coast. Waves smashed him on rocks; he swam on to a river mouth, crawled out, covered himself with leaves, and slept.
When he woke he saw the princess and her maids on the beach. He begged her help. She was kind beyond her years: she had him washed, gave him bread and wine, and clothed him in the garments they saw. That, he said, was the truth.
He told how Calypso had wanted him deathless and unaging, how he had refused, how she had sent him at last on a raft with bread, wine, stout clothes, and a fair warm wind. Seventeen days he sailed; on the eighteenth he saw their mountains and was glad.
Alcinous said his daughter should have brought the stranger straight to the house. Odysseus answered that she was not at fault. She had told him to follow the servants, but he was ashamed and afraid the king might take offense. Every man is sometimes wary.
“I do not anger over nothing,” Alcinous said. “By father Zeus, Athena, and Apollo — now that I see what kind of man you are — I wish you would stay, marry my daughter, and take a house and land. But no one shall keep you against your will. Tomorrow I will see to your escort.”