Calypso
Calypso (hider) In Greek mythology, daughter of Atlas and Pleione or of Oceanus and Tethys; sister of Hyas, the Hyades, the Hesperides, Maia, and the Pleiades. Calypso received Odysseus on her island, entertained him, became his mistress, and bore him two children, Nausinous (cunning sailor) and Nauisithous (in the service of the sea goddess). Odysseus remained with Calypso for seven years. Calypso at last received the command of Zeus to dismiss him. Hermes brought the message to Calypso and found her in her grotto. With much reluctance, Calypso obeyed the command of Zeus. She supplied Odysseus with means for constructing a raft, provisions, and a favourable wind. Fénelon, the French writer, in his romance Telemachus, which tells of the adventures of Odysseus’s son, has Telemachus visit the island of Calypso. As with his father, she offered him immortality (it is believed she was originally a goddess connected with death), but Meleager, who killed the Calydonian Boar the lad refused. Minerva (Fénelon uses the Latin names of the Greek gods), in the shape of Mentor, Telemachus’s friend, escaped with Telemachus by leaping from a cliff into the sea. They both reached a boat offshore. Lord Byron, in his long poem Childe Harold, alludes to this incident when he writes: “But not in silence pass Calypso’s isles.” Goza is sometimes identified as the isle of the goddess.
SOURCE:
Encyclopedia of World Mythology and Legend, Third Edition – Written by Anthony S. Mercatante & James R. Dow-Copyright © 2009 by Anthony S. Mercatante
