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Loneliness will eat someone alive.
Calypso has spent her entire life alone in her paradise prison of Ogygia. The tales she hears from other errant gods are that her father is punished similarly, though more harshly than her, imprisoned to hold the earth and skies, while her mother chases after her starborn half-sisters.
Her so-called family is scattered across the winds while she’s abandoned on her tiny island, never leaving. No one had wanted her, and so she was left here. Her grandparents, whom she’s never met, were titans of the oceans yet the waters do not yield to her. If she tries to build a boat, the waves will crash it apart and if she tries to swim, the currents will spin her around right back to Ogygia. She lives with the shame of actions she’s never done, blamed for her parents' sins.
At first she tries being content. She keeps a tidy house, takes up plenty of hobbies, and looks after her quaint island. This goes on for decades. Gods can’t die but their minds are still just like a human mind. The monotony drives her mad. Calypso destroys the things she’s built and tries to burn down cursed Ogygia, and fails to do so. The waves douse her flames.
She screams, cries, begs to unhearing skies to free her. She doesn’t know how long her madness drags on before that, too, becomes boring. Her mind returns to her painfully simply as she’s left cleaning up her mess.
It’s unfair. Her wretched, free-flying nephew Hermes can come and go as he pleases, mocking her with his absolute freedom. The other gods get to live vivacious, sordid, wicked, and pleasure-filled lives but Calypso’s fate is to be alone.
She tries to be an optimist. At least Ogygia is beautiful, and at least there are animals she can befriend. At least the sun and clouds greet her every day, at least the winds bring tales of great human warriors to alleviate her boredom.
Calypso assumes she’ll always be alone.
But then a man washes ashore.
She’s in disbelief at first, assuming a lump of seaweed and driftwood has tricked her uneasy mind- but he breathes! His eyes flutter in his sleep. The man even cries out for a one ‘Penelope.’
This is a face she’s never seen before, it’s almost too surreal to believe. Someone has come to her! The waves of Ogygia have never blessed her with a visitor. Her mind runs wild with possibility. If he’s ended up here, surely her lost sailor has angered the gods, and not just anyone, but the king of them all: Zeus. If he’s pissed off someone that powerful, the waves will condemn him here with her just the same.
It’s like they’re fated to be together. What is a prison if a prison is spent with someone else?
Calypso doesn’t know what love is. How could she, there’s never been anyone else to love around her. But she wants to, and she thinks she could with this man, this ‘Odysseus’ as he tells her. He’s her gift from the ocean, the one destined for her, her eternal lover.
Except he refuses.
He doesn't understand he’s stuck with her. No one leaves Ogygia if the oceans demand it. The winds won’t fill your sails and a storm will come to sink any chances of escape. Calypso tries to stay chipper about it, trying to ease Odysseus into the idea of spending eternity with her, but a great burden weighs on his soul.
She is terrified. Gods don’t die, but humans can destroy themselves so easily.
Calypso tries to soothe him, offering all the love she can. Maybe it’s not good enough, maybe she’s too ignorant of the pathways of love to try and walk those roads. Her love isn’t enough for him. The endless circles they walk in for seven years nearly drive her mad again. Why isn’t she good enough, not even for him? She’s a goddess! She’s the only other person on the island, why can’t he understand that? He can either love her or die- and she doesn’t want him to die.
But even when Odysseus is unrelenting in his stony heart, at least it’s something new. Every experience she gets with him is something she’s never had before. Another person, eating meals with her, sleeping with her, talking with her.
Her swift-footed nephew comes to destroy her paradise.
Hermes doesn’t understand it. His whole role in the pantheon is to send messages all over the world. He is the complete opposite of her. And yet he comes to tell her Odysseus has a life beyond her and a wife and child waiting for him, but doesn’t he hear his hypocrisy? The gods dally with mortals all the time, why can’t she have her own affair?
She’s not naive! Calypso feels as if her entire body and soul are intertwined with Odysseus, so he must feel the same! How could someone feel emotions like these and have them go unanswered? How could Odysseus ignore her for so long while thinking of a wife he hasn’t seen in over twice as long? The waves brought him to her, and she is a daughter of the oceans, shouldn’t that be a sign?
But her family has never loved her. She has always been alone. Whatever the waves bring, they also take away. Hermes says Odysseus was never made to be hers, just ended up on her little island for a pinch of time before he had to go again.
Calypso hates him, really, really hates him this time. Hermes and the rest of her cruel family have earned her ire and will never be forgiven. They think they can dangle hope, love, and happiness in front of her before tugging it away just as fast. And she admits to herself, she hates, hates Ogygia.
If she hates this island so much… how could she consign her true love to suffering eternity with her here? If she wishes to leave but cannot, and Odysseus has his chance to abandon these perfect, empty shores, how could she keep in this prison?
She loves him and the only way she can show him that is to let him go.
Calypso shows Odysseus the best trees to build his ship from and gives him the tools to cut them down. When he packs for his trip home, she prepares food and supplies for him. And when the time comes for Odysseus to sail away, she tearfully sends the winds to fill his sails. He doesn’t look back as he crosses the horizon, leaving doomed Ogygia.
And Calypso is alone again.
She has a long cry about it. Maybe she screams and says some nasty things, who is to say. But afterwards she dusts the sand from her dress and goes back to her empty home, sitting alone at her table, and returns to life as it was before Odysseus arrived.