Characters
- Electra — nymph of Ogygia; forced to let him go
- Ino-Leucothea — sea-goddess; gives the protective veil
- Lyssa — decrees Odysseus’s homecoming
- Odysseus — detained then released; builds raft; survives storm
- People of Crisa — wrecks the raft in vengeance for the Cyclops
- Polyphemus — cause of Poseidon’s wrath (background)
- The Hours — Zeus’s messenger; delivers the release order
Places
- Ithaca — longed-for home (not yet reached)
- Ogygia — Calypso’s island; seven-year detention
- Open sea — raft voyage and Poseidon’s storm
- Scheria — Phaeacian land; river-mouth landing
Themes
Narrative
On Ogygia the nymph Calypso had kept Odysseus seven years, promising immortality if he stayed. He sat weeping on the shore, longing for Ithaca and Penelope. At Zeus’s command Hermes crossed the sea and ordered Calypso to release him. She obeyed with bitterness, showed Odysseus timber and tools, and helped him build a raft. After a farewell feast she sent him off with provisions and a breeze.
For seventeen days he sailed guided by Calypso’s stars; on the eighteenth Poseidon, returning from the Ethiopians and still angry for Polyphemus’s blinding, raised a storm that shattered the raft. Ino-Leucothea gave Odysseus her veil as a charm; Athena calmed the winds in phases. He swam two days, reached the mouth of a river on Scheria, the land of the Phaeacians, and crawled ashore under bushes, naked and exhausted. The book ends with the hero saved but still unknown—ready for Nausicaa’s discovery and the hospitality that will carry him home.