“What do you mean?” asked Telemachus.
“What do I mean? Attend to me!
I’ll try to tell you, telling a story
Of the island called Ogygia.
“I know women—how shall I tell you?
Women are good, and good is wine.
Yet how to tell the wine and women
That turn her adorers into swine.
“You must have aid of Hermes, swiftness
Of spirit and sense to tell them apart;
How to be strong, how to be tender,
How to surrender and keep your heart.
“Easy for me to baffle Circe,
Easy the Sirens to slip—just wax!
I steered for Ithaca, you and your mother,
Isle to isle on the ocean’s tracks,
“Until I came and saw Calypso.
Son you would be with Calypso yet.
It takes a hero suppled in flame
To see Calypso, and leave, forget
Face and voice enough to leave her,
Spurn her promises, turn from her tears,
Come to Ithaca with this doorway,
Age that hovers, the little years.”
“What do you mean?” asked Telemachus.
“Live and learn,” Ulysses replied.
“Calypso promised me youth eternal
If I would stay and make her my bride.”
“And why not stay?” asked Telemachus
“To have her for wife, if not a youth
Eternal given you?” “Boy of me listen
Now for the core of the deepest truth:
“We dined in grottoes of blooming ivy;
We supped in halls of cedar and gold;
We slept on balconies, sapphire tented—
But even I found this growing old.
“I saw her beauty bare by star light,
And by the sea in the sun, and stoled
In silk as white as snow on Parnassus—
But even I found this growing old.