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Home>>Poetry>>Poetry Collections>>Angels over Elsinore

The Nymph Calypso

Picture
Planning to leave Calypso in the lurch,
Odysseus snuck off to build a ship.
He found the right-shaped boughs of larch or birch 
Or spruce, for all I know, from which to strip
The bark, and...but the details we can skip.
I won't pretend that I've done much research.
He had to build a ship and he knew how.
Just how he did it hardly matters now:

Enough to say he juggled rib and spar.
Calypso came to him and said, "I see
That duty calls. Will you be going far?
You wouldn't have your mind on leaving me,
By any chance? Forget the trickery
For once, and if you're following your star
Just say so. Circe lured you with a song.
At least I wasn't stringing you along."

"It's time," he said. "I'm an adventurer.
I sail in search of things. It's what I do.
I'd heard about how beautiful you were,
So lovely that I came in search of you.
But now I know you and need something new
To challenge me." He wryly smiled at her
To show he knew he sounded like a ham.
"You wanted me. Well, this is what I am."

"All very well," Calypso said, "but I
Have an investment here. You had to quit
Sometime, and I gave you a reason why.
Old studs like you need youth to love. I'm it.
I'm always eager, and you're still quite fit:
A last adventure to light up the sky.
I'll tell my tale forever, don't forget:
The greatest lover that I ever met."

Odysseus could see the point, but still
He stood his ground, a man of destiny
Proclaiming his ungovernable will
To follow the unknown out to the sea
Beyond the sea, and solve the mystery
Of where the world went next, and not until
He had would he find rest. Calypso said,
"No wonder that you turned up here half dead."

That night the two of them made love again.
She slapped herself against him when she came
The way she always did, but even then
She let him know she knew things weren't the same.
She cried out his polysyllabic name --
Something she'd never done for other men --
As if, this time, he was no longer there.
But though she flattered him with her despair,

Already he had made the break. His mind
Was elsewhere, on a course she could not guess.
She thought her hero had new worlds to find
Out on the edge of the blue wilderness,
But he had lied, to cause her less distress.
We needn't think of him as being kind:
He simply knew the truth would drive her mad
And make her fight with everything she had.

After he left, she let the world believe
She'd given him the boat: a likely tale
That Homer swallowed whole. Keen to deceive
Even herself, for no nymph likes to fail --
The Miss World of the Early Age of Sail
Had never yet known such a cause to grieve --
She spread the story that he'd only gone
Because she told him legends must go on.

But he was going home. There, in the end,
Lay the departure point for his last quest.
Age was a wound that time indeed would mend
But only one way, with a long, long rest.
For that, familiar territory is best.
As for Penelope, he could depend
On her care for the time he had to live.
Calypso wanted more than he could give,

And it was time to take, time to accept
The quiet bounty of domestic peace.
After he killed the suitors who had kept
His wife glued to the loom, she spread the fleece
Of their first blanket and they found release
Together as they once had. Though she wept
For their lost years, she gave him her embrace,
And he looked down into her ageing face

And saw Calypso. What the nymph would be,
Given the gift of time, was there made plain,
Yet still more beautiful. Penelope,
Because she knew that we grow old in pain
And learn to laugh or else we go insane,
Had life unknown to immortality,
Which never gets the point. "Well, quite the boy,"
She murmured. "And now tell me about Troy."

Later the poets said he met his fate
In the Atlantic, or perhaps he went
Around the Horn and reached the Golden Gate.
Space vehicles named after him were sent
Into infinity. His testament,
However, and what truly made him great,
Was in the untold story of the day
He died, and, more or less, had this to say:

"Penelope, in case you ever hear
The nymph Calypso loved me, it was so:
And she tried everything to keep me near
But finally she had to let me go
Because she knew I loved you. Now you know,
And I can move on, having made that clear."
And so he did, while she knelt by his side,
Not knowing, as he sailed on the last tide,

That just this once he almost hadn't lied.

 (The Monthly, August 2007)
(Painting by Laura Smith, Madeleine in a Dressing Gown, 2007)

Poems

  • Meteor IV at Cowes
  • Overview
  • We Being Ghosts
  • Ghost Train to Australia
  • Yusra
  • Status Quo Vadis
  • Tramps and Bowlers
  • The Nymph Calypso
  • Angels Over Elsinore
  • Double or Quits
  • Natural Selection
  • Dreams Before Sleeping
  • Naomi from Namibia
  • Fires Burning, Fires Burning
  • Return of the Lost City
  • Portrait of Man Writing
  • Museum of the Unmoving Image​
  • A Gyre from Brother Jack
  • A City with Green Fingers
  • Diamond Pens of the Bus Vandals
  • When We Were Kids
  • Mystery of the Silver Chair
  • Private Prayer at Yasukuni Shrine
  • Sonnet After Wyatt
  • Paddington Departures
  • Les Saw It First
  • The Genesis Wafers
  • Literary Lunch
  • Exit Don Giovanni
  • At Ian Hamilton's Funeral
  • Press Release from Plato
  • You, Mark Antony
  • Lock Me Away
  • Young Lady Going to Dakar
  • State Funeral
  • Publisher's Party
  • The Zero Pilot
  • Iron Horse
  • Statement from the Secretary of Defense
  • Only Divine
  • My Father Before Me
  • The Magic Wheel
  • The Serpent Beguiled Me
  • Woman Resting
  • The Australian Suicide Bomber's Heavenly Reward
  • Windows Is Shutting Down
  • Anniversary Serenade
  • Belated Homage to Derek Walcott





Reviews of Angels over Elsinore

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Peter Stothard
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  • Home
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      • Introduction
      • Polanski and the Pianist
      • Fantasy in the West Wing
      • Pushkin's Deadly Gift
      • Great Sopranos of Our Time
      • A Memory Called Malouf
      • Bing Crosby's Hidden Art
      • Larkin Treads the Boards
      • The Iron Capital of Bruno Schulz
      • Criticism a la Frank Kermode
      • Fast Talking Dames
      • Rough Guides to Shakespeare
      • General Election Sequence 2001
      • Primo Levi and the Painted Veil
      • A Big Boutique of Australian Essays
      • Cyrano on the Scaffold
      • A Nightclub in Bali
      • Aldous Huxley Then and Now
      • A Man Called Peter Porter
      • Philip Roth's Alternative America
      • The Miraculous Vineyard of Australian Poetry
      • Save Us From Celebrity
    • The Revolt of the Pendulum >
      • The Question of Karl Kraus
      • John Bayley's Daily Bread
      • Kingsley and the Women
      • Canetti Man of Mystery
      • Camille Paglia Burns for Poetry
      • The Guidebook Detectives
      • Zuckerman Uncorked
      • The Flight from the Destroyer
      • Saying Famous Things
      • Insult to the Language
      • The Perfectly Bad Sentence
      • Happiness Writes White
      • All Stalkers Kill
      • Best Eaten Cold
      • White Shorts of Leni Reifenstahl
      • Made in Britain, More or Less
      • Movie Criticism in America
      • Show Me the Horror
      • The Measure of A.D. Hope
      • Robert Hughes Remembers
      • Modern Australian Painting
      • On Diamond Jim McClelland
      • The Voice of John Anderson
      • Niki Lauda Wins Going Slowly
      • Damon Hill's Bravest Day
      • Jonathan James-Moore
      • Ian Adam
      • Pat Kavanagh
      • Starting with Sludge
    • Guest Writers >
      • Zoe Williams
      • Russell Davies
      • Bryan Appleyard
      • Marina Hyde
      • Bruce Beresford
      • Michael Frayn
  • Poetry
    • Poetry Collections >
      • Fin de Fiesta
      • Injury Time
      • Sentenced to Life >
        • Japanese Maple
        • Sentenced to Life
        • Procedure for Disposal
        • Leçons des ténèbres
        • Driftwood Houses
        • Event Horizon
        • Neuland
        • Echo Point
        • Change of Domicile
        • Holding Court
        • Too Much Light
        • Nature Programme
        • My Latest Fever
        • Nina Kogan's Geometrical Heaven
        • The Emperor's Last Words
        • Winter Plums
      • Nefertiti in the Flak Tower >
        • Whitman and the Moth
        • The Falcon Growing Old
      • Angels over Elsinore
      • The Book of My Enemy >
        • Recent Verse
        • Verse Letters
      • Opal Sunset
      • Other Passports >
        • Recent Verse >
          • The Book of My Enemy has been Remaindered
        • Parodies etc.
        • Earlier Verse
        • Verse Diaries
      • Fan Mail >
        • To Russell Davies: a letter from Cardiff
        • To Martin Amis: a letter from Indianapolis
        • To Pete Atkin: a letter from Paris
        • To Prue Shaw: a letter from Cambridge
        • To Tom Stoppard: a letter from London
        • To Peter Porter: a letter to Sydney
    • Epic Poems >
      • The River in the Sky
      • Gate of Lilacs
      • The Divine Comedy >
        • Hell - Cantos 1-3
        • Purgatory - Cantos 1-3
        • Heaven - Cantos 1-3
      • Poem of the Year
    • Books About Poetry >
      • Somewhere Becoming Rain
      • Poetry Notebook >
        • Listening for the Flavour
        • Five Favourite Poetry Books
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        • Meeting MacNiece
        • The Donaghy Negotiation
    • Poetry Readings
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      • Liane Strauss
      • Les Murray
      • Peter Porter
      • Alan Jenkins
      • Stephen Edgar
      • John Stammers
      • Simon Barraclough
      • Isobel Dixon
      • Christian Wiman
      • Olivia Cole
      • Judith Beveridge
      • Peter Goldsworthy
      • Kapka Kassabova
  • Lyrics
    • My life in lyrics
    • Selected Song Lyrics >
      • Dancing Master
      • Faded Mansion
      • Have You got a Biro I can Borrow?
      • I Have to Learn to Live Alone Again
      • Hill of Little Shoes
      • History & Geography
      • I See the Joker
      • Laughing Boy
      • My Brother's Keeper
      • National Steel
      • Nothing Left to Say
      • Sessionman's Blues
      • Song for Rita
      • Stranger in Town
      • Sunlight Gate
      • The Egoist
      • The Eye of the Universe
      • The Ice Cream Man
      • Femme Fatale
      • The Master of the Revels
      • Thirty-year Man
      • Winter Spring
  • Video
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      • Series Three
      • Series Four
      • Series Five
    • Postcards
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