Before there was FedEx, Hermes delivered the messages overnight.
- This council takes up where the first left off. Here, though, Zeus orders Hermes to bring the message to Calypso that Odysseus must be released.
- Picture of Calypso.
- We finally meet Odysseus for the first time. He is "long-enduring Odysseus"—"polutlas"—the book emphasizes that Odysseus is at the bottom of his fortune, a prisoner, despondent. Then Calypso reduces him even further, making him a castaway.
- "Off he sat on a headland, weeping there as always, / wrenching his heart with sobs and groans and anguish, / gazing out over the barren sea through blinding tears." (93 ff)
- Calypso is willing to release him finally, after seven years of captivity.
- Calypso appears only here in mythology, and even here she is needed more for the plot. She provides a convenient explanation for a large portion of Odysseus's 10-year return home. Telemachus must be given enough time to grow up.
- What Homer does with her brief appearance is interesting. Calypso offers Odysseus immortality, never-ending pleasure, and constant sex. She even wants to help him make his return home (line 170 ff)
- Notice how suspicious Odysseus is of her beginning on line 190. Should he react in this manner to her, even asking her to swear an oath (198)? What are her motives toward him here at this spot and later on (228 ff)? What does his reaction to her offers here and later (when he says he wants to be with Penelope even though Calypso is more beautiful) say about him? Why does he prefer to struggle to go home rather than to enjoy a life of ease with Calypso? [Discuss Ody Bk05 Q01]
- Notice how often Odysseus has to make choices, what his choices propose, and how he finally chooses:
- 228 -
- 391 -
- 458 -
- 520 -
- As you think about the choices he has to make and how he chooses, consider these lines:
- And if a god will wreck me yet again on the wine-dark sea,
- I can bear that too, with a spirit tempered to endure.
- Much have I suffered, labored long and hard by now
- in the waves and wars. Add this to the total—
- bring the trial on. (242-248)
- What do you think about the dilemmas that are presented to him, how he sees them, and how he acts? Is there an underlying consistency to why he makes the choices he does? [Discuss Ody Bk05 Q02]