Odyssey 4.556 · Book 4, lines 556–560
Odysseus weeping on Calypso's isle
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τὸν δʼ ἴδον ἐν νήσῳ θαλερὸν κατὰ δάκρυ χέοντα, νύμφης ἐν μεγάροισι Καλυψοῦς, ἥ μιν ἀνάγκῃ ἴσχει· ὁ δʼ οὐ δύναται ἣν πατρίδα γαῖαν ἱκέσθαι· οὐ γάρ οἱ πάρα νῆες ἐπήρετμοι καὶ ἑταῖροι, οἵ κέν μιν πέμποιεν ἐπʼ εὐρέα νῶτα θαλάσσης.
him I saw on an island, shedding big tears, in the halls of the nymph Calypso, who holds him there by force; but he cannot reach his own fatherland, for he has no oared ships at hand and no companions who might send him over the broad back of the sea.
Word by word
The setting
Proteus reveals the third man's fate: Odysseus is alive, but trapped. He is on the island of the nymph Calypso, who keeps him by force; he has no ship and no crew to carry him home. This is the poem's own situation, stated by a god inside a story told by another man.
A note on this passage
The whole predicament of the Odyssey in five lines: alive, weeping, held, and stranded without the means to leave. Proteus gives the physical facts — an island, a nymph, no ship, no oarsmen — not the drama. The tears are the only feeling named.
The undercurrent is where we are hearing this. Book 5 will show us Odysseus on exactly this shore, weeping exactly these tears; here in Book 4 we get it secondhand, as a god's report inside Menelaus's tale to Telemachus. The son learns his father is alive from a story about someone else's homecoming — the news reaches Ithaca sidelong, through the ache of another house.
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