12.426-453

Calypso appears here as δεινὴ θεὸς αὐδήεσσα (449), the epithet that ties her to Circe and Ino as a liminal figure on the boundary between human and divine (see above on 10.133–77). When we last heard of Calypso, she was sending Odysseus off to sea from her timeless world to the island of the Phaeacians, itself home to an ultra-refined civilization that serves to mediate between the nymph’s non-human realm and the entirely human world of Ithaka. Her reappearance at the end of Book 12 reminds us that we in fact stand on several overlapping boundaries in the poem, which mark not only differing modes of existence but also the temporal elisions that the poem’s structure creates. We have emerged with Odysseus from the nightmarish gauntlets that punctuate his first years after leaving Troy, full of monsters and dangerous female forces, yet that journey had already happened before the events in Book 5, so we are simultaneously back in the past and on the cusp of the future in Ithaka.

These circles within circles in the poem’s structure serve Homer’s methods as a storyteller, as we have seen. Though Circe comes first in the chronology of the story, in the poem’s structure we learn about her after we have encountered Calypso, Nausicaa, and Arete, the commanding queen of the Phaeacians. The danger she represents is already well-defined by Book 10, not only embodied in those four different versions of the feminine, but even by Polyphemus, whose peculiar mode of existence resonates in various ways with the witch’s world. By the time Odysseus meets the Sirens, the threat they embody for him is immediately resonant and carefully defined. Likewise, the imagery of the Skylla and Charybdis episodes, on the surface all about monstrous creatures, is powered by the undercurrents of sexual threat. Finally, when the crew encounter the cattle of the Sun, their transgression—cosmic in its reach like the earlier releasing of the winds—is freighted with all their previous failures.

The complex structure of the Odyssey challenges us to keep track of where Odysseus—and we—are in the story at any given time. We might ask ourselves what the poet gains by this elaborate circular architecture. Character in Homeric epic is always a product of analogies generated by parallels between different figures. Repetition, what critics in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries saw as a sign of multiple authorship, is in fact the backbone of the poetry’s meaning. The full significance of Penelope’s character and actions when Odysseus returns in disguise to Ithaka only emerges if we see her as the sum of all the female figures, human and divine, in the story. Odysseus himself emerges from his exile in oblivion with Calypso and evolves in our understanding as against many other male characters, Menelaus, Agamemnon, Achilles, Ajax—even Telemachus, whose adventures in Pylos and Sparta show him anticipating traits we later see in his father.

In our Odyssey, when Odysseus finishes his story, we are likely thinking ahead to Ithaka. But suppose that Homer had created a linear narrative—as some modern adaptations have done—with the adventures of Books 9–12 coming first, in the third person voice, then Calypso and the Phaeacians, then back to Ithaka? Calypso’s relatively benign affection for Odysseus and Nausicaa’s youthful, charming naivete would appear against the backdrop of life-threatening encounters and would be colored by a much darker undertone. Both of these early episodes are appealing precisely because the poet uses a lighter emotional palette to create Odysseus’ potential paramours. Likewise, the Phaeacians’ warm hospitality would be much more suspect in the wake of the adventures with the dangerous hosts of Book 9 and 10. When Odysseus wakes up on Ithaka, the emotional weight of the harrowing adventures in Books 9–12 would be distant in our memories, altering our perception of the hero’s eventual triumph.

The implied contrasts between Odysseus and the dead heroes in the Underworld point to the unique qualities that carry him through the dangers of the journey home. Of the heroes returning from Troy, only Odysseus has the requisite intelligence and self-control to survive. The loss of the entire crew foreshadows the death of the suitors, both groups conspicuous for their inability to rein in their impulses. Odysseus himself will need these qualities in abundance once he reaches Ithaka, where he will endure insults, verbal and physical, from the suitors and their allies. The darker aspects of his character have also emerged, his emotional isolation and estrangement from his crew, his insistence on pursuing knowledge and experience not strictly necessary to the success of the mission, which puts his crew in danger, costing many of them their lives. His survival is of paramount importance; theirs, it sometimes seems, is not.

All of these traits, positive and negative, come to a crescendo in the most charged and important encounter of the poem, Odysseus’ campaign to win Penelope back. The dark paradigm of Clytemnestra, which hovers over the entire poem, beginning in Book 1 and reinforced in the Underworld, seems to inform Odysseus’ decision—backed by Athena’s machinations—to stay undercover and leave Penelope in the dark as he plans his revenge on the suitors. He cannot trust her to keep his secrets. But in fact, her intelligence and self-control are a match for his, as we observe the delicate course of action she pursues in Books 18–23. It is never clear—perhaps not even to her—whether she has decided to give up and choose a new husband or keep waiting for Odysseus’ increasingly unlikely return. Even when the suitors are dead, she holds out, outsmarting Odysseus and making him lose his legendary self-control with the ruse of the bed, before finally giving in and acknowledging his identity as her husband. Their joyous reunion, which they and we have looked forward to for so long, is enriched by the continuing presence, reinforced by the poet’s use of repeated patterns of character and action, of all the characters who embody aspects of them both: Calypso, Nausicaa, Arete, Circe, Menelaus, Telemachus, Agamemnon, Achilles, Ajax. There is only one Penelope, only one Odysseus, but they come into being before us as the richly layered and deeply human creations of a poet working within a thoroughly traditional medium.

Further Reading

Thalman, W. 1992. The Odyssey: An Epic of Return, 65–69. New York: Twayne Publishers.