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Calypso's Island
You are washed up on the island of Ogygia. An exquisitely beautiful goddess, Calypso of the braided tresses, finds you and looks after you and falls in love with you. She offers you immortality if you will be her husband. But for you, sleeping with her is an inescapable chore: for seven years your nights are spent in joyless lovemaking in her vaulted cave, and your days in solitary weeping on the sea-shore - hoping that some day the gods will remember you. You despair of seeing Penelope and Telemachus again.But at last, it seems, the gods are on your case. Poseidon was away in Ethiopia, and Athena took advantage of his absence to put your case to Zeus. Zeus agrees and sends Hermes to tell a tearful Calypso of his decision. Athena prompts Zeus to send Hermes to tell Calypso it's time for her to let you go.
Calypso accuses the gods of sexism - they never let a goddess marry a mortal. But she agrees, reluctantly, not to keep you any longer. She helps you build a raft and stocks it with provisions - and after one last night of love you sail away with a gentle following breeze. All goes well for seventeen days: on the eighteenth you can see the mountains of the land of the Phaeacians …