Illustration of Odysseus tied to a ship's mast

The Odyssey

by Homer

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Who is Calypso jealous of in The Odyssey?

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Calypso is jealous of both the gods and Penelope in "The Odyssey." She resents the gods for their freedom to consort with mortals without facing consequences, highlighting the unfairness toward immortal women like herself. Calypso also envies Penelope, as Odysseus longs to return to his mortal wife despite Calypso's offer of immortality and her own divine allure. This jealousy underscores her frustration with the limitations placed on her relationships with mortals.

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In book 5 of The Odyssey, Calypso appears to be jealous of both the gods and Penelope.

Hermes delivers Zeus’s command to Calypso that she must let Odysseus leave in order to return home:

His life may not in exile go to waste.
His destiny, his homecoming, is at hand,
when he shall see his dearest, and walk on his own land.

Calypso immediately lashes out in anger at this message:

Oh you vile gods, in jealousy supernal!
You hate it when we choose to lie with men—
immortal flesh by some dear mortal side.

Understandably, Calypso is enraged because she must give up Odysseus. Actually, she is jealous of the gods because of their freedom and injustice to immortal women. As she points out, Zeus and other gods can sleep with mortal women; on the other hand, immortal females like Calypso are not allowed to sleep with mortal...

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men. When they do, the gods punish them and their lovers.

Calypso emphasizes this inequity by presenting examples:

So radiant Dawn once took to bed Orion
until you easeful gods grew peevish at it,
and holy Artemis, Artemis throned in gold,
hunted him down in Delos with her arrows.

The affair between the goddess Dawn and the giant hunter Orion caused Zeus and other gods to be angry and kill the mortal man with Artemis’s arrows.

Then Demeter of the tasseled tresses yielded
to Iasion, mingling and making love
in a furrow three times plowed; but Zeus found out
and killed him with a white-hot thunderbolt.

Zeus put a tragic end to the liaison between Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, and Iasion, a Cretan youth.

Calypso argues that after all, she is the one who rescued and nurtured Odysseus back to health after his shipwreck caused by Zeus, and thus deserves the man’s eternal company.

Ultimately she obeys Zeus. On the last night with Odysseus, however, she makes a last-ditch attempt to convince him not to leave. First, Calypso warns him of perils that he will face at sea on his journey home. Then she tells him that if he stays with her instead, he will be

immortal—though you wanted her forever,
that bride for whom you pine each day.
Can I be less desirable than she is?
Less interesting? Less beautiful? Can mortals
compare with goddesses in grace and form?

Calypso acknowledges that Odysseus yearns to reunite with his wife, but she asks him how the wife compares to her. After all, Calypso is immortal and Penelope is a mortal; therefore, how can Calypso be less appealing—desirable, interesting, and beautiful—than a mere mortal? Nonetheless, Calypso knows that her pleading with Odysseus is in vain as he resolves to leave the next morning.

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