Odyssey 7.259 · Book 7, lines 259–263
Seven years, and the eighth
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ἔνθα μὲν ἑπτάετες μένον ἔμπεδον, εἵματα δʼ αἰεὶ δάκρυσι δεύεσκον, τά μοι ἄμβροτα δῶκε Καλυψώ· ἀλλʼ ὅτε δὴ ὀγδόατόν μοι ἐπιπλόμενον ἔτος ἦλθεν, καὶ τότε δή μʼ ἐκέλευσεν ἐποτρύνουσα νέεσθαι Ζηνὸς ὑπʼ ἀγγελίης, ἢ καὶ νόος ἐτράπετʼ αὐτῆς.
There, for seven years, I stayed steadfastly, and always I kept wetting the clothes with tears, the immortal robes which Calypso gave me; but when at last the eighth year came round for me, then she bade me, urging me to return, by the message of Zeus, or her own mind turned as well.
Word by word
The setting
Odysseus stays seven years on the island, weeping into the immortal clothes she gave him. In the eighth year Calypso at last tells him to go — moved by a message from Zeus, or a change in her own mind.
A note on this passage
The years on Ogygia, compressed. Seven of them he stays, steadfast, soaking the goddess's immortal clothes with his tears. In the eighth year she finally tells him to leave, whether prompted by Zeus's messenger or by a turn in her own mind.
The image of weeping into deathless cloth catches his whole condition: surrounded by the trappings of paradise and wretched inside them. Homer leaves Calypso's motive open — Zeus's order, or her own heart softening — and does not resolve it. The god's command and the goddess's change may be one event seen from two sides.
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