Odyssey 7.255 · Book 7, lines 255–258
Calypso's offer
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ναίει ἐυπλόκαμος, δεινὴ θεός, ἥ με λαβοῦσα ἐνδυκέως ἐφίλει τε καὶ ἔτρεφεν ἠδὲ ἔφασκε θήσειν ἀθάνατον καὶ ἀγήραον ἤματα πάντα· ἀλλʼ ἐμὸν οὔ ποτε θυμὸν ἐνὶ στήθεσσιν ἔπειθεν.
dwells, the fair-haired, a dread goddess, who, taking me, kindly loved and tended me, and declared she would make me immortal and ageless all my days; but never did she persuade the heart in my breast.
Word by word
The setting
On Ogygia the goddess Calypso took the castaway in, cared for him, and promised to make him immortal and ageless forever — but she could never win his heart.
A note on this passage
On the island the goddess takes the castaway in. Calypso loves and tends him, and offers the greatest gift a divinity can give a man: to be made immortal and never grow old, for all time. It is the offer at the centre of the Odyssey.
And he refuses it — or rather, she can never persuade his heart. The plain last line carries the poem's deepest choice: Odysseus would rather be a mortal going home than a deathless man kept on a perfect island. Home and a human life outweigh eternity. The refusal defines him as surely as any deed of arms.
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