But hear, O earth, and hear, ye sacred skies!

And thou, O Styx! whose formidable floods

Glide through the shades, and bind the attesting gods!

No form’d design, no meditated end,

Lurks in the counsel of thy faithful friend;

Kind the persuasion, and sincere my aim;

The same my practice, were my fate the same.

Heaven has not cursed me with a heart of steel,

But given the sense to pity, and to feel.”


Thus having said, the goddess marched before:

He trod her footsteps in the sandy shore.

At the cool cave arrived, they took their state;

He filled the throne where Mercury had sate.

For him the nymph a rich repast ordains,

Such as the mortal life of man sustains;

Before herself were placed the the cates divine,

Ambrosial banquet and celestial wine.

Their hunger satiate, and their thirst repress’d,

Thus spoke Calypso to her godlike guest:


“Ulysses! (with a sigh she thus began;)

O sprung from gods! in wisdom more than man!

Is then thy home the passion of thy heart?

Thus wilt thou leave me, are we thus to part?

Farewell! and ever joyful mayst thou be,

Nor break the transport with one thought of me.

But ah, Ulysses! wert thou given to know

What Fate yet dooms these still to undergo,

Thy heart might settle in this scene of ease.

And e’en these slighted charms might learn to please.

A willing goddess, and immortal life,

Might banish from thy mind an absent wife.

Am I inferior to a mortal dame?

Less soft my feature less august my frame?

Or shall the daughters of mankind compare

Their earth born beauties with the heavenly fair?”


“Alas! for this (the prudent man replies)

Against Ulysses shall thy anger rise?

Loved and adored, O goddess as thou art,

Forgive the weakness of a human heart.

Though well I see thy graces far above

The dear, though mortal, object of my love,

Of youth eternal well the difference know,

And the short date of fading charms below;

Yet every day, while absent thus I roam,