book five

• Athene appeals to Zeus on Odysseus' behalf, saying there is no point in ruling with "justice" if you will be left to "languish in misery" like Odysseus on Ogygia
• Zeus grants Athene permission to go save Telemachus
• Zeus tells Hermes to tell Calypso to release Odysseus
• Zeus predicts that Odysseus will leave her island on a raft he build, will suffer "hardship" before reaching the Phaecians who are "close to the gods" who will deliver him home and give him gifts "he could never have won for himself from Troy"
• Hermes obeys and goes to Calypso to tell her Zeus' decree and finds her singing and weaving
• Hermes admires Calypso's cave, a "spot where even an immortal visitor must pause to gaze in wonder and delight"
• Calypso recognises Hermes and shows him "hospitality" while Odysseus cries on the shore "tormenting himself with tears and sighs, and sadness" "streaming eyes"
• Hermes highlights how isolated Calypso's island is, saying how there's not a city or a "mortal soul to offer a choice sacrifice" but he must come to obey Zeus' will
• Hermes tells her Odysseus is "destined" to return home
• Calypso is horrified, calling the gods "unmatched for jealousy" all because she has chosen a mortal man for a husband
• Calypso gives examples of the gods' past jealousy

  • Dawn fell in love with Orion and Artemis killed him
  • Demeter had sex with Iasion and Zeus killed him
• Calypso laments, saying how she rescued Odysseus, welcomed and tended to him and offered to make him "immortal and ageless"
• Calypso agrees to let him go as Zeus' word is final
• Calypso goes to tell Odysseus the news, and he asks her to take an oath that she won't plot any injustice against him
• Calypso warns him he will experience more misery and offers him immortality once more and stay with her who is incomparable to Penelope as a goddess but Odysseus refuses
• Calypso and Odysseus retire to bed and "find pleasure making love"
• Odysseus worked "fast" to build his raft and finished after the "fourth day", when Calypso sent a "warm and gentle breeze" to help him
• After 17 days he reaches the Phaecians
• Poseidon catches sight of him which "enraged" him and "stirred up the sea" but Odysseus "avoided the finality of death"
• Ino "took pity" on Odysseus, tells him to take off his clothes and swim to the shore, and gives him a veil to wrap around his waist for divine protection and then throw back into the sea when he reaches the shore
• Odysseus does not listen to her advice, scared this is another "snare" but then Poseidon sends another wave and he listens
• Poseidon gives up and returns to Aegae
• Athene intervenes, calming all the winds and flattening the waves so he is delivered safely
• After two days he arrives and realises there is no place he can get to safety
• A wave sweeps him forward, and his skin would have been "torn off" and "all his bones broken" if Athene did not "put it into his head" to grab onto a rock
• Athene gave him the "great idea" to pray to the River as its "supplicant" and it delivers him safely at its mouth and Odysseus removes the veil
• Odysseus decides to sleep in woodland instead of by the river, under two olive bushes (Athene) and Athene helps him sleep