Unchanged by any teller — how the centuries since have seen Calypso.
The gallery
Odysseus and Calypso
Arnold Böcklin, 1882
Böcklin's oil (Kunstmuseum Basel) stages Odyssey 5 on Ogygia: the nymph Calypso, who detained Odysseus seven years longing to make him her husband, confronts the hero turned away in columnar grief. The lyre at her side and his averted back fix the island paradise as a place of exile.
Calypso Abandoned by Odysseus
Angelica Kauffmann, c. 1782
Neoclassical canvas by Angelica Kauffmann: Calypso watches Odysseus' ship leave Ogygia after Hermes has forced her to release him. The nymph who offered immortality is left on the shore — the Homeric detention rewritten as a scene of abandoned love.
Hermes Ordering Calypso to Release Odysseus
Gerard de Lairesse, c. 1670
Dutch classical oil in the Rijksmuseum (SK-A-212): Mercury delivers Zeus' command while Calypso receives the order that ends Odysseus' seven-year stay. Lairesse makes the nymph the still centre of the scene — hostess and detainee alike, compelled to let the wanderer go.
The Goddess Calypso Rescues Ulysses
Cornelis van Poelenburgh, c. 1630
Italianate landscape by Cornelis van Poelenburgh in which Calypso draws the shipwrecked Odysseus from the sea onto Ogygia. Before the long detention and Hermes' summons, the nymph appears as rescuer — the Homeric welcome that will become a seven-year captivity.
Calypso
Henri Lehmann, 1869
Academic oil by Henri Lehmann in the Minneapolis Institute of Art: Calypso alone, idealized as a solitary goddess of the shore. Stripped of Odysseus, the portrait still names the Ogygian nymph — the detainee-hostess of the Odyssey reduced to a single contemplative figure.
On screen
The Odyssey
Andrei Konchalovsky
Vanessa Williams' Calypso holds Odysseus on Ogygia until Hermes forces the release — the seven-year detention restaged as a lush, reluctant farewell.
Ulysses
Mario Camerini
Camerini's peplum keeps the Ogygian detention among the voyage's set-pieces — Calypso's island as one stop on Kirk Douglas' compressed Odyssey.
L'Odissea
Franco Rossi
Rossi's landmark miniseries gives Calypso her Homeric farewell — Hermes' command and the nymph's reluctant release filmed for European television.
In music & on stage
In play
Calypso (moon)
Saturn's tiny Trojan moon took the Oceanid's name — Ogygia's nymph carried into the outer solar system beside Tethys.
Calypso (Ulysses episode)
James Joyce
Joyce titles the fourth episode of Ulysses after the Ogygian nymph — Bloom's morning in Eccles Street shadowed by Homer's island detention.