Notes

There is an isle, Ogygia, far across the sea, where artful Calypso of the lovely tresses, the daughter of Atlas, lives, and neither gods nor mortals approach her, but Fate brought me alone to her in my misfortune, for Zeus had struck my ship with his bright lightning, and wrecked it far out on the wine-dark sea. There my loyal friends were drowned, but I grasped the keel of my curved ship, and drifted for nine days, till on the tenth night of darkness the gods washed me ashore on Ogygia, where lives that dread goddess Calypso of the lovely tresses. She welcomed me to her home with kindness, fed me, and promised to make me ageless and immortal, but she never reached my heart. Seven whole years I stayed there, soaking the everlasting garments Calypso gave me with my tears. But when the eighth year came round, she urged me to go, because of some message from Zeus, or because her feelings had changed. since I was still to be a friend of great suffering, that Poseidon Earth-Shaker brought me. He roused the winds against me, blocked my path, and raised huge waves, so the sea refused to leave me alone as I sat there groaning ceaselessly aboard my raft. Instead the storm wrecked it, and I reached here, swimming the great gulf till the wind and waves carried me to your shore. When I tried to gain the land, the breakers dashed me against a dangerous stretch of cliff, but I backed away, and swam till I came to a river mouth, where there was a likely place, free of rocks and sheltered from the wind. I staggered clear, and lay there, gasping for breath, while deathless night fell. Then lay down to rest in a thicket. Then a god shed boundless sleep upon me. So I slept all night through. Then I saw your daughter’s maids playing on the sand, and she among them looking like a goddess. She gave me plenty of bread and glowing wine, bathed me in the river, and gave me these clothes. This is the truth I tell, regardless of its pain.’