Calypso Protests, Then Yields

9He spoke; Calypso, glorious goddess, heard,
And shuddered, and with winged words replied: —

10“You are unjust, you gods, and, envious far
Beyond all other beings, cannot bear
That ever goddess openly should make
A mortal man her consort. Thus it was
When once Eos, rosy-fingered, took
Orion for her husband; you were stung,
Amid your blissful lives, with envious hate,
Till chaste Artemis, of the golden throne,
Smote him with silent arrows from her bow,
And slew him in Ortygia. Thus, again,
When bright-haired Demeter, swayed by her own heart,
In fields which bore three yearly harvests, met
Iasion as a lover, this was known
Erelong to Zeus, who flung from high
A flaming thunderbolt, and laid him dead.
And now you envy me, that with me dwells
A mortal man. I saved him as he clung
Alone upon his floating keel; for Zeus
Had cloven with a bolt of fire from heaven
His galley in the midst of the black sea,
And all his gallant comrades perished there.
Him kindly I received; I cherished him,
And promised him a life that never should know
Decay or death. But since no god has power
To elude or to withstand the purposes
Of aegis-bearing Zeus, let him depart —
If so the sovereign moves him and commands —
Over the barren deep. I send him not;
For neither ship arrayed with oars have I,
Nor seamen, over the boundless waste of waves
To bear him hence. My counsel I will give,
And nothing will I hide that he should know,
To place him safely on his native shore.”

11The herald Argus-queller answered her: —
“Dismiss him thus, and bear in mind the wrath
Of Zeus, lest it be kindled against you.”