Calypso was a nymph in Greek mythology who lived alone on the island of Ogygia.
She was renowned for her beauty, with flowing locks of hair and an ethereal grace.
Calypso enraptured Odysseus when he washed up on her shores after his shipwreck, providing him food, drink, and shelter in her grotto for seven years.
Though she desired for Odysseus to stay with her forever and offered him immortality, he ultimately chose to leave and return to his wife Penelope in Ithaca.
Calypso is often depicted in classical artwork as a lovely, youthful figure surrounded by nature on her secluded island paradise.
Excerpt from Homer's Odyssey, Book 1
Homer:
“Calypso, a great goddess, had trapped him in her cave; she wanted him to be her husband.
When the year rolled round in which the gods decreed he should go home to ithaca, his troubles still went on”
Athena:
“For too long he has suffered, with no friends, sea all around him, sea on every side, out on an island where a goddess lives, daughter of fearful Atlas, who holds up the pillars of the sea, and knows its depths- those pillars keep the heaven and earth apart.
His daughter holds that poor unhappy man, and tries beguiling him with gentle words to cease all thoughts of Ithaca; but he longs to see even just the smoke that rises from his homeland”… “If the blessed gods at last will let Odysseus return back home, then hurry, we must send our messenger, Hermes the giant-slayer.
He must swoop down to Ogygia right away and tell the beautiful Calypso we have formed a firm decision that Odysseus has waited long enough.
He must go home.”