Odyssey 5.151 · Book 5, lines 151–153
Calypso finds him weeping
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τὸν δʼ ἄρʼ ἐπʼ ἀκτῆς εὗρε καθήμενον· οὐδέ ποτʼ ὄσσε δακρυόφιν τέρσοντο, κατείβετο δὲ γλυκὺς αἰὼν νόστον ὀδυρομένῳ ἐπεὶ οὐκέτι ἥνδανε νύμφη.
And she found him sitting on the shore, nor were his eyes ever dry of tears, and his sweet life was ebbing away, mourning his return, since the nymph no longer pleased him.
Word by word
The setting
Hermes has just delivered Zeus's order and gone; Calypso, resigned, goes to find Odysseus. This is the hero's first appearance in the poem — not in battle or council, but alone on the beach, his face to the sea, wishing only to die at home.
A note on this passage
This is the poem's first look at Odysseus, and it is a picture of a man wearing out. He sits on the beach and weeps; his tears never dry; the very sweetness of life is draining from him. Everything Calypso can offer — an immortal lover, an island of ease — he no longer wants. Only the νόστος, the return home, holds him.
The quiet cruelty here is the setting. Homer has kept the hero offstage for four books, building him up in others' words; now he is revealed at his lowest, in a paradise that has become a prison. The goddess's cave is beautiful, and he would trade it in a heartbeat for the rocky poverty of Ithaca. The word for it is homesickness, but the poem shows it as a life quietly running out.
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