Hither by flood and driving tempest blown,
I loved and nourished, and had thought to keep,
Deathless and ageless always for my own.”[[11]]
The love of Calypso, of which she spoke so simply and frankly to Hermes, was something deeper than caprice. It was rooted in that heroic act when she had toiled to drag him up out of the fiercely beating surf, and had brought him back from the brink of death to the cheerful light of day. She had given him his life, and her love with it; and ever since she had striven to keep him at her side, thinking to win his love in return. But she was no witch, to wreak evil spells over an unwilling heart; and though the blow that Hermes had dealt her was a bitter one, she replied with dignity. She would consent to the will of Zeus, not merely because he might not be withstood, but because it was her desire to do good to Odysseus.
“Let him go hence across the barren sea;
Howbeit his convoy cannot come from me,
Since oared ships I have not to my hand,
Nor any mariners his crew to be
“Over the ridges of the broad sea-floor:
Yet will I gladly teach him all my lore,