Odyssey 5.184 · Book 5, lines 184–187
The oath by Earth, Heaven, and Styx
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ἴστω νῦν τόδε γαῖα καὶ οὐρανὸς εὐρὺς ὕπερθε καὶ τὸ κατειβόμενον Στυγὸς ὕδωρ, ὅς τε μέγιστος ὅρκος δεινότατός τε πέλει μακάρεσσι θεοῖσι, μή τί τοι αὐτῷ πῆμα κακὸν βουλευσέμεν ἄλλο.
Let this be witness now: Earth, and wide Heaven above, and the down-flowing water of Styx — which is the greatest and most dread oath for the blessed gods, that I will plot no other evil bane against you yourself.
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The setting
Calypso now swears the oath Odysseus asked for, calling on the three witnesses a Homeric oath cannot be broken before: the Earth, the broad sky, and the underworld water of Styx.
A note on this passage
She swears by the three great witnesses of a binding oath — Earth beneath, wide Heaven above, and the cold water of Styx, the oath even the gods dread to break — that she plans no further harm against him. It is the most solemn form of promise the poem knows.
The undercurrent is who gives this oath, and to whom. The Styx-oath is what gods swear to gods; Calypso lays it before a mortal man on a beach. That she must — that only the unbreakable oath will settle his fear of a trap — measures both his ruined trust and her surrender. She spends the gods' own currency to buy the belief of one wary human.
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