Okay. What I'm really trying to get at here has nothing to do with Flinders drawing a freakishly perfect map of Australia after a three quarters circuit.
It's all about the goddess Calypso, the muse of many a sea-going creature and how her, and those of her ilk, manage to detain men for a short while from their most (self) important endeavours.
'After nine days he drifted ashore on the island of Ogygia, where lived Calypso, the daughter of Thetis by Oceanus, or may have it been Nereus or Atlas.
Thickets of alder, black poplar and cypress, horned owls, falcons and sea crows and trees sheltered Calypso's great cavern. Here the lovely Calypso welcomed Odysseus as he stumbled ashore. She offered him plentiful food, heady drink and a share of her soft bed.'
"If you stay with me," she pleaded, "you shall enjoy immortality and ageless youth."
Under this premise she detained him for seven years and tried to make him forget Ithaca. But he tired of her embraces and would sit on the sea shore, staring out to sea.
Finally Zeuss ordered Calypso to free him. She had no choice but to teach the Voyager how to build a raft. She promised him ageless youth but Odysseus wanted a full life, not immortality. On the other hand, had he stayed and chosen eternal life, she might have fucked him to death anyway.
The Greek Myths, Robert Graves, pg. 655.
I think i read a different version of this story!
ReplyDeleteThat's probably because I made this version up :)
ReplyDeleteSarah, it is so hard to tell when you are telling the truth:) I trust you as a historian and am constantly (pleasantly) confused reading your stories.
ReplyDeleteI don't suppose you want the gender psychology of this story mapped out..... ;-) Nah, you just wanna write it....
Heh heh - the whole bloody lot is about gender psychology - and that's the truth!
ReplyDelete