Calypso (mythology)

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Odysseus and Calypso
( Arnold Böcklin , 1883, Kunstmuseum Basel )

Calypso ( Greek  Καλυψώ “hidden” or “hiding woman ”) is actually a sea ​​nymph and goddess of Greek mythology that lives on the otherwise uninhabited island of Ogygia , which is only inherent in the Odyssey and the narrative tradition that is dependent on it . She was a daughter of the Titan Atlas and the Pleione .

Possibly the same or a different calypso is listed in the theogony of Hesiod as Oceanid , daughter of Oceanus and Tethys , and the Nereid Calypso, daughter of Nereus and Doris , mentioned in the library of Apollodorus , could be the same figure .

myth

Odyssey

So-called Kalypso Grotto on Gozo

The Odyssey begins with the advice of the Olympian gods, suggested by Athena , that Odysseus, pursued by Poseidon , should finally return home from Calypso's island of Ogygia. In the fifth chant of the same epic, Homer describes how the “noble” and “beautifully curled” Calypso loves the shipwrecked Odysseus and holds on to him for seven years (later mythographers sometimes indicate different periods). Although Calypso promises the hero immortality and eternal youth if he stays with her, Odysseus, who has seen the hardships that await him in the underworld since his journey into the realm of the shadows , wishes to leave her to go to Ithaca to his wife Penelope to return. Finally, Zeus orders the calypso - transmitted by the messenger of the gods Hermes - to release Odysseus. Reluctantly to obey, she provides him with tools to build a raft, and later with travel food. It also gives him valuable tips for the journey and sends him a favorable westerly wind.

progeny

Homer does not mention any descendants for Calypso. Only in post-Homeric traditions are Calypso and Odysseus assigned sons. In an epitome of the library of Apollodorus , a Latinus is mentioned as the son of Odysseus, who is generally considered to be the son of Kirke . According to Hesiod's theogony , Calypso Odysseus gave birth to two sons, Nausithoos and Nausinous.

Modern adaptations

  • In astronomy , a Saturn moon ( calypso ) and the asteroid (53) calypso are named after the nymph.
  • In botany there is a genus of orchids with the scientific name Calypso : see Norne (orchids) .
  • A research vessel owned by Jacques-Yves Cousteau bore the name of the nymph: see Calypso (ship) .
  • In 1910 Alfred Döblin published the conversations with Kalypso , in which he uses a music-philosophical conversation to create a criticism of the identical, goal-oriented subject and contrasts it with an "experience self".
  • With the painting "Odysseus und Kalypso", Max Beckmann created a work in 1943 in which Kalypso is understood as the type of devoted woman.
  • Michael Köhlmeier's 1997 novel Kalypso ( ISBN 978-3-492-03965-9 ) tells a modern version of the encounter between Odysseus and the nymph Kalypso.
  • In the second and third parts of the Pirates of the Caribbean pentalogy , Tia Dalma , played by Naomie Harris , appears as the witch and lover of Davy Jones . At the end of the third part, she reveals herself as a calypso.
  • In the series by Percy Jackson and the subsequent Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan , Calypso appears a few times and is freed from her island in the last book of the Heroes of Olympus series by Leo Valdez served as a prison. She gets together with Leo and then goes to a high school in Indianapolis.
  • In the episode Calypso from the Star Trek: Short Treks series , the spaceship USS Discovery, abandoned by its crew for almost 1,000 years, rescues the soldier Craft, who is drifting through space in an escape pod. Zora, the artificial intelligence of Discovery, begins to fall in love with Craft, but in the end lets him set off for his home planet.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Eg Homer , Odyssey 1:14; 5.85; 7,246,255 and more.
  2. ↑ Otto Immisch : Kalypso . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 2.1, Leipzig 1894, Col. 940 f. ( Digitized version ).
  3. ↑ Homer , Odyssey 1.85.
  4. ↑ Homer, Odyssey 1.52.
  5. ^ Hyginus Mythographus , Fabulae , Praefatio 16.
  6. ^ Hesiod , Theogony 352-355.
  7. ^ Libraries of Apollodorus 1,2,6.
  8. ↑ Homer, Odyssey 7,259
  9. ↑ Otto Immisch : Kalypso . In: Wilhelm Heinrich Roscher (Hrsg.): Detailed lexicon of Greek and Roman mythology . Volume 2.1, Leipzig 1894, Col. 940-940 ( digitized version ).
  10. ↑ Homer, Odyssey 5,230-277
  11. ↑ Libraries of Apollodorus , Epitome 7:24
  12. ↑ Hesiod, Theogony 1004-1005

Web links

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