My current researches have led me to bump tangentially against the legend of
Calypso. A minor Greek goddess...
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| Henri Lehmann: Calypso (1869) |
... she's most famous for rescuing Odysseus from yet another ruddy shipwreck...
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| Cornelis van Poelenburgh - The Goddess Calypso Rescues Ulysses (1630) |
and then keeping him prisoner on her island of Ogygia for seven years as her sex-toy.
She only let him go after the other gods sent their messenger Hermes to order his release.
Most accounts have Odysseus gloomily staring out to sea and sighing for his wife back home:
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| Odysseus and Calypso - Arnold_Böcklin (1883) |
That's presumably because there was nothing else to Ogygia but beach:
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| Herbert James Draper: Calypso's Isle (1897) |
He even refused her offer of immortality - there's only so much sex and sand a man can take, clearly...
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| Jan Styka: The Goddess Calypso Promises Immortality to Odysseus (1901) |
Although he gave the titty-fondling a good go for seven years:
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| Jan Brueghel the Elder - Odysseus and Calypso (1616) |
There are a LOT of depictions of this legend out there, most of them a bit bland and Baroque. But I was delighted to discover
William Russell Flint's 1924 illustrations of
The Odyssey, which are just full of nipples, nudity and lust:
In fact I'm now rather obsessed with
Mr Flint's work!
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