The story of the beautiful nymph Calypso is told in Homer’s Odyssey, an ancient Greek epic. Calypso lived on the island of Ogygia, where the shipwrecked hero Ulysses (Odysseus) drifted ashore. Plying Ulysses with luxuries, love, and offers of immortality, Calypso kept him with her for seven years. Finally the gods intervened and let him sail for home. Here, Calypso mourns Ulysses’ departure, on the same shore where the homesick hero himself used to stare despondently out to sea.
Credit Line: Text courtesy of the Minneapolis Institute of Art (CC BY 3.0).
