LOVE WITH ANOTHER GODDESS and BOAT BUILDING

He stayed on the island for seven years alone with Kalypso and her serving maids. While living on Kalypso's island, Odysseus required timber for a "raft". We're told in the text that Hermes, the messenger of the gods, visited Kalypso with word from Zeus that she must permit Odysseus to return to his homeland. No one can, of course, wisely go against the word of Zeus, so she cooperates and provides Odysseus with a great axe and an augur to build the craft. He bores and primes with dowels the 20 trees he cuts down, and lashes them together with cords. He makes deck boards, closes the ends with gunwales, steps the mast and upper deck, provides a steering oar, fences the whole length with wattles of osier (interwoven willow cuttings), and sets rigging for a sail, provided by Kalypso.

"Aha" you may say, "there are no trees on the Orkneys." But in 1200 B.C.E., yes, there were. By pollen counts and by peat bog finds, we know there were birch, oak, elm and pine trees there then.

Almost all the translations of Homer's text from the Greek call it a raft, but actually it's now thought that what is being described is how boats and ships were built in those days. We build the framework and ribs first, then plank it afterwards. Ancient ships had the hull planking, which was cut on a curve, built first with mortise and tenon joints to hold it together, then they fitted the ribs afterwards. The word that is translated as raft,"Skhedios", doesn't mean raft. It comes from an adverb which means "that which is near at hand", something improvised. So this is some kind of improvised boat that Odysseus built. And the verb "torneno" means rounded. So it was some kind of improvised boat with a rounded hull.

Homer tells us that although Odysseus was on the island with Kalypso for seven years, he built the boat very quickly:

"It was the fourth day and all his work

was finished."

I suspect it took him much more of the seven years than that to build a boat from trees, without power tools, single handed.

If we consult the genealogy of Odysseus, we'll see that he was not just involved in boat building. Kalypso, the shining goddess, did more than provide him with working tools and sails. She apparently gave birth to three sons, all fathered by Odysseus who was still married to Penelope back in his island kingdom of Ithaca.

When Zeus sent Hermes (an Immortal we have met before) to tell Kalypso to let him go, she lived in a great cave, according to Homer:

"...nor did the shining goddess Kalypso

fail to recognize Hermes when she saw him come into her presence;

for the Immortal gods are not such as go unrecognized

by one another, not even if one lives in a far home. ---"