Sea goddess calypso. Meaning of the word calypso

Having gone through many deadly tests, the hero did not suspect that he would actually be a prisoner for many years with the beauty known as nymph Calypso...

Island of Sirens

As soon as the ships approached the land known as the Isle of the Sirens, the sea calmed and the crew took up the oars. This island destroyed many, as the sirens who lived on it lured travelers with their bewitching singing, after which they never returned. On the advice of Circe, Odysseus ordered his comrades to cover their ears with wax and tie himself to the mast in order to be able to pass by danger, but at the same time hear divine singing.

The sirens called to Odysseus with enchanting voices, saying that there was no sailor in the world who would not enjoy the sounds of song flowing from their lips. The sirens continued to broadcast that they knew about the events that took place in Troy, and could foresee everything that would happen in the future on this earth.

Odysseus was enchanted by the singing, he begged his comrades to land on the shore to enjoy the company of the beautiful sirens. But no one could hear their captain, and the rowers only became more tense, trying to get away from the deadly island of the sirens.

Having avoided one danger, the travelers encountered another. Of all Odysseus's adventures, this was one of the most dangerous. It was necessary to navigate the ship through a narrow strait between two monsters called Scylla and Charybdis. If the cautious sailor somehow avoided meeting Charybdis, he still encountered the terrifying Scylla hiding in the cave. She had twelve legs and six heads. Each mouth was lined with three rows of teeth. Hiding in a cave, the monster took a human victim from every passing ship.

Odysseus, warned by Circe, decided not to inform his team about Scylla and go as far away from Charybdis as possible. Thus, their path lay directly under the rock of Scylla. Despite the fact that Odysseus was armed and ready to fight to save the lives of his comrades, the monster Scylla still snatched and killed six sailors.

Bulls of Helios

And so the ship approached the island of Trinacia, which had rich pastures, where Helios kept herds of snow-white bulls. Both Circe and Tiresias warned Odysseus that if he wanted to stay alive and get to Ithaca, he did not need to go to this island or, in any case, not touch the sacred bulls of Helios. The exhausted travelers nevertheless begged Odysseus to stop at the island and spend at least one night on the shore. Odysseus agreed, but under the strictest ban not to touch Helios’ cattle.

However, the raging elements did not allow the sailors to travel further either in a day or even in a week. As long as people had a supply of provisions, they did not touch the bulls of Helios. But when the food ran out, the team, taking advantage of Odysseus’s absence, broke their word. Having caught the fattest animals from the herd, they prepared a meal from them. The unfortunate people believed that if they slaughtered the bulls in honor of the gods, they would not be angry.

Odysseus smelled roasting meat with horror and immediately rushed to the camp. Alas, the job was done, nothing could be changed, all that remained was to rely only on the mercy of the gods. When the meal was over, the wind suddenly died down and the ship could raise sail. But as soon as the sailors set out to sea, the punishing lightning of Zeus suddenly flashed in the skies, dark clouds appeared and a storm arose. The ship was thrown onto the rock with such force that it was smashed into small pieces. Miraculously, only Odysseus survived, clinging to a piece of the mast.

Odysseus and Calypso

For nine days he was carried along the stormy waves, and on the tenth he was washed up on the island of Ogygia. On this remote island lived the beautiful nymph Calypso. Odysseus and Calypso lived together on the island for seven whole years, and perhaps the nymph would have kept him longer, but, goddess Athena, finally took pity on the hero. She instructed Hermes, the messenger of the gods, to tell the nymph that the time had come to release Odysseus, as he must continue his journey. Having made a reliable raft and stocked up on food and water, Odysseus again set off on a long journey. To speed up Odysseus's return to Ithaca, Calypso summoned a fair wind.

Fall of the Roman Empire

The Great Migration of Peoples that took place in the 5th-7th centuries. played a huge role in the fall of the Roman Empire. From China to...

Cahokia Mounds

North of Mexico, there is one of the largest archaeological sites of the Mississippian culture, covering an area of ​​approximately 810...

DIY polypropylene pool

One of the economical options for swimming pools is polypropylene bowls installed in a pre-dug pit or on the ground. For...

Vanishing Lake

The mystery of the disappearing lake In 2007, a lake in Chile suddenly disappeared before our eyes. Instead, a huge...

Chapter XII CALYPSO ISLAND

After nine days of wandering, Odysseus was thrown by the waves onto the island of Calypso. This new episode interrupts the linear development of the plot, since the myth of Calypso is, in fact, nothing more than a variant of the myth of Kirk - “redundant” in the poem from the point of view of modern aesthetic criteria (however, about the principles of organizing material in the Odyssey has been said more than once), but very valuable from the point of view of “additional information”.

Calypso is the classic “mistress of death,” and this motif is emphasized in the myth by all possible “symbolic means”; the very name of the goddess means “hiding”, which not only clearly expresses the corresponding idea, but also has certain Indo-European parallels: Hel, the name of the mistress the afterlife in Scandinavian mythology, has the same meaning and apparently comes from the same root.

No less characteristic are the signs of Calypso’s home: she lives in a cave surrounded by a dense forest of “cypresses, alders and poplars,” in which “owls, hawks and crows” are found in abundance; the meadow in front of the cave is dotted with “violets and celery.” All these details give the picture a completely definite tone: not to mention the well-known “mourning symbolism” of the cypress, it can be noted that the poplar was also considered by the Greeks as “a symbol of darkness, grief and tears”; a similar formula, in principle, is applicable to alder, since it was to it - if we trust the authority of Virgil in this matter - that the myth of “the trees mourning the setting sun” was dedicated (in a later reinterpretation, it came down to us as the legend of the “sisters of Phaeton”) .

Let us note that the theme of alder expands the pan-Indo-European context, which we have already outlined in connection with the image of Calypso; Among the “Danish folk songs” translated by Herder, the ballad about the “daughter of the Alder King” who “dances in a green meadow” is of interest in this sense: she invites a knight passing by to join in the dance, and when he (in a not too polite form) refuses, sends a fatal disease on him. This plot, of course, can be understood as a unique version of the myth of Orion, and in the image of the daughter of the Alder King the features of the archaic goddess of death associated with alder are quite clearly distinguished; however, in in this case(as in all such cases) we can talk about “death” only in a purely relative sense; mention of a "silk shirt bleached in moonlight“, which the daughter of the Alder King offers to the knight in exchange for a dance, is a legitimate and logically consistent development of the “new clothes” motif that is already well known to us.

In connection with what we said above about the specifics of modern European literature, we note that the fate of the ballad translated by Herder turned out to be not without a certain “drama” - the “giant shadow” of Johann Wolfgang Goethe that fell on it diverted the reader’s attention to another, perhaps a more vivid, but also not without some ambiguity, interpretation. Inspired by Herder’s translation, the great poet decided to “read” the classical myth in a “bold and modern” manner: instead of the “daughter of the Alder King”, “the father himself” appears before us, instead of the “knight” - a horseman, “carrying a baby somewhere”; the traditional interaction of female and male characters is thus replaced by “purely male communication”, and the behavior of the Alder King, luring the “baby” to himself, evokes quite close associations with the myth of the abduction of Ganymede. The feeling of some “irregularity” of what is happening is further strengthened by the consideration that the Alder King is, strictly speaking, the god of death, who, unlike the corresponding goddess, “has absolutely nothing to offer of himself”; seducing the “baby”, he refers first to his “daughters”, then to his “mother”, who has “many golden clothes” - however, we do not directly see either the daughters or the mother, and their “alarming absence” gives the whole poem Goethe, I must admit, has a rather sinister connotation.

However, let's return to the description of Calypso's home. The forest around her cave is inhabited, as we remember, by owls, hawks and crows. The connection of these birds with the goddess of death seems quite natural and (in the first two cases) has already been noted by us; As for crows, as a pan-Indo-European parallel we can mention the Irish Queen of the Dead (a similar translation of the name “Morrigan” seems to us quite acceptable), whose nicknames included “Battle Crow.”

We also note that in this context, the “crow” could apparently be understood as a metaphor for the “soul”: when describing the death of Odysseus’s ship, it was said about his dead companions that they rushed along the waves, like crows. This incongruous (since crows, as a rule, do not rush along the waves) metaphor can, however, find a plausible explanation - if we assume that the crows are in the forest at Calypso (it is specifically stated that these are sea crows, which "care about maritime affairs") are none other than the souls of Odysseus’s companions, whose stay on the “island of death” seems - in view of previous events - quite natural.

It should be pointed out that the myth about the “sea ravens” as birds, one way or another associated with the kingdom of death, apparently existed in Celtic mythology: a character named Morvran (“Sea Raven”) was the son of the already mentioned Carridwen ; If we draw an analogy (in our opinion, quite legitimate) between him and the Raven - the Son of the Sea (Bran vab Llur), the master of the Welsh underworld, the symbol of which was the alder, then a rather close and promising in historical and mythological terms rapprochement of the images of Carridwen and Calypso.

The line of “mourning symbolism” we are considering is completed by the description of the meadow in front of Calypso’s cave, “overgrown with violets and celery.” The “melancholic” appearance of the former and the “melancholic” associations associated with the latter (the Hellenes decorated tombstones with celery, which is why even the saying “needs celery” arose - in the sense of “breathing its last”), enhance the gloomy flavor of the surrounding landscape. However, “gloominess” is an inherently dual state; on the island of Calypso there reigns a kind of “eternal twilight”, the transition of which into “final darkness” is prevented by a distinct and emphasized presence signs of life: grapevine entwining the entrance to the Calypso cave (a symbolic complex undoubtedly parallel to the “fig tree growing above the whirlpool”), and four streams flowing from this cave with clear water“- in the latter case, associations with Kirke’s four servants, daughters, do not seem arbitrary "groves, streams and sacred streams tending to the sea" washed Odysseus from dust and “Soul-consuming fatigue.

Calypso herself, as we noted above, is, in fact, none other than Kirke’s mythological double; in the description of her image there are all the motifs already well known to us: she “sings beautifully”, she is a “weaver”, weaving “new clothes” for the hero, she offers the hero “ablution” and honors him with “her love” (the symbolism of the “cave” is intended , obviously, to emphasize the idea of ​​regressus ad uterum), finally, she instructs hero. Let us also note that the rapprochement between Kirke and Aphrodite - Astarte, which we have already outlined, will receive additional grounds if we expand the context by involving the image of Calypso; Regarding this goddess, the Odyssey specifically notes that this detail, being considered in terms of “ sacred geography”, clearly points to the mountains of Lebanon, which were one of the classical places of veneration of Astarte.

If we now move on to consider the actual plot of the myth oh Calypso, we will have to state Availability at least two of its versions: the “original” and “the one that has come down to us”; since the "original" version is in some way more "correct", we review Let's start with it.

In its main features, this version naturally coincides with the original version of the Kirk myth that we reconstructed and boils down to the following: after Odysseus spent some time on the island of Calypso, she sent him “back to the world of the living” - she taught him how to build a raft, “supplied with provisions” for the journey and explained that it was necessary to swim

so that the Ursa of Heaven, unaffected by the waves of the sea, is on the left -

or, in other words, to the east, from which it can be concluded that Calypso's island is in the west - this is the only point where this goddess "opposes" Kirke, whose island, as the reader must remember, is in the east. However, in this case we are talking not so much about “confrontation” as about mutual complementation: we can mention, for example, that in Egypt the goddess N.t-hr was called the “Mistress of the Beautiful West,” while Isis was considered more like the “Mistress of the East” ; in fact, both goddesses were, as it were, “at different poles,” but the latter circumstance was in no way an obstacle to their ritual identification.

Let us add that in the original version, Odysseus was undoubtedly portrayed as a prudent and dutiful “recipient” of Calypso’s instructions; his return home to Ithaca (we note, however, that in the original version it was not necessarily about Ithaca at all), occurred, accordingly, without any “interesting roughness”, which are not so appropriate in the space of a cult myth. The question of the motivation for Calypso’s actions in the original version, of course, was not raised and could not be raised; the actions of the goddess “merely express her nature,” and no external causes should be sought to explain them.

Now if we turn to " existing version“, we will find in it a number of quite significant discrepancies with the “original” we reconstructed. In particular, we can read that Calypso “almost by force” keeps Odysseus, and he “cries” and “asks to go home to his wife” - however, sentimentality, we note, is almost always a sure sign of degeneration. The myth in its original form was undoubtedly devoid of these melodramatic effects - not least because Calypso and Penelope (remember, this is the name of Odysseus's wife) belong to the same category of mythological characters, within which it is impossible to whatever "rivalry" is; in a certain sense, one could even say that Penelope and there is Calypso.

In favor of this statement (which, of course, sounds quite bold), the following argument can be used: like Calypso, Penelope is an excellent weaver”; this alone, of course, is not enough to identify them, but Penelope is by no means a “simple” weaver. As you know, during the absence of Odysseus, she was very much bothered by “all sorts of uninvited suitors”; to get rid of their harassment, she came up with the following very specific plan: having informed the suitors that she would not marry until she had woven funeral clothes for her father-in-law, she diligently set to work, but at the same time “every night, by the light of torches, she unraveled everything woven during the day " The invention turned out to be extremely successful, since with its help Penelope managed to fool the suitors for no less than “three whole years.”

However, the apparent wit of this idea conflicts with its completely obvious uselessness: after all, Penelope wove in my chambers, where applicants had no right to enter until they acquired “legal status”, and therefore, neither “weaving” nor “unraveling” was at all necessary, since the situation allowed us to limit ourselves to purely verbal deception. However, even if we assume that the suitors “became so impudent” that they began to directly burst into the chambers, Penelope’s idea still could not be considered effective - after all, the reaction of the suitors in this latter case would be easily imagineable: “Well, yesterday I started weaving , and today we come - there’s nothing,” and so on for for three whole years. Odysseus' rivals are not, of course, textbook examples of insight and intelligence, but three years of such deception is, perhaps, still too much. And even if we assume that Penelope wanted to deceive not so much the suitors as the maids, some of whom, as we know, managed to “fall in love” with the suitors, the expediency of her undertaking will still seem very controversial: after all, someone, and the maids should be “the subtleties of a certain kind of craft” are familiar. In other words, the version of “deceiving the grooms” does not stand up to criticism; Before us is an obvious later interpretation, which was resorted to either “out of foolishness”, or due to some other reasons unknown to us.

However, it should be noted that the main elements of the original version have been preserved and can be considered as an independent mythology, describing a certain “weaver” who “weaves” during the day, and at night, by the light of torches, “unraveling the woven”; It is hardly worth specially proving that such a plot, by definition, excludes the possibility of any “everyday”, “naturalistic” interpretation. The "weaver" in question is the goddess who weaves the "garments of life" (and in this sense analogous to Calypso and Kirke); she weaves these clothes during the day, since "day" is a fairly common symbol of life, and dissolves them at night, since "night" is an equally common symbol of death; Having unraveled the fabric, the goddess begins to weave again.

Note that this myth should not be reduced to a simple allegory: the symbolism of thread, fabric, yarn, etc. apparently correlates with a certain specific reality, the idea of ​​which, as far as we know, is most clearly formulated in tropical Africa (Dahomey ), where there is a special term “dan” to denote it. According to M. Herskowitz, “given” is a vital principle, embodied in everything that is flexible, tortuous, moist, coiled and unfolded. “Dan” plays a fundamental role in the incarnation of each soul: it is like a certain “path”, following which the soul that is about to be born approaches the future mother; but it is also a kind of “base” from which the formation of the individual’s physical body begins. In Dahomey, the most common dana symbol is the snake. If we assume that a similar concept existed in the Mediterranean region (a hypothesis that should hardly be considered particularly daring), then we can come closer to understanding (more precisely, get out of the state of “absolute misunderstanding”) a number of stable symbols belonging to the circle of “mythology” goddesses” - not only “snakes” as such, but also “spirals” and “threads” (“labyrinth”, “threads of Ariadne”, etc.); in this light, the symbolism of the fabric also becomes more understandable, expressing the idea of ​​​​the formation of a complex physical structure on the basis of a certain primary simple element (“dana”). If we “transpose” the myth of Charybdis into the same context, then the already mentioned “keel with mast” within the framework of “textile symbolism” can be interpreted as “warp and weft”; however, here we come close to questions, the complexity of which is in sharp disproportion with what is available on this moment We have an abundance of information at our disposal.

The reader, presumably, paid attention to the following, undoubtedly significant detail of the myth about Penelope: she unravels the clothes she has woven by the light of torches. In the “mythology of the goddess,” the image of a torch plays a rather prominent role: not to mention the canonical descriptions of Erinny and Hecate, it can be especially noted that it was “with torches in hands,” according to the “Hymn to Demeter,” that the goddess was looking for her missing daughter. This clarification indicates a certain special role of the torch, complementing its traditional meaning as an attribute legally appropriate goddess as the “mistress of fire”; however, we will talk about this special role below.

So, regardless of whether or not Penelope's rapprochement with Calypso is accepted, one thing, we hope, seems indisputable - Penelope is not one of those wives from whom you can “beat off your husband.” The sentimental fantasy that “Calypso did not let Odysseus home to his rightful hearth” is an obvious invention of the compiler, who was trying to combine in this way two independent plots: “visits to the Mistress of the West,” on the one hand, and “the return of the missing husband and reprisals against the annoying grooms” – on the other. Not without, of course, the hypocrisy characteristic of patriarchal relationships, which demanded to explain why the “faithful” Odysseus allowed himself to “enter into a relationship with another woman” - a solution in this case was found with the help of a clear, albeit somewhat naive-sounding formula “ was forced to do so."

Among other innovations that “creatively refracted” the original version of the myth, one can note the somewhat unexpected appearance of Zeus as almost the main character: Odysseus would have “shed tears on a distant island” if Zeus had not “rescued” him, who, as It is known that “all injustice is organically alien.” He might not have allowed the family to be “destroyed” from the very beginning, but from the very beginning he did not have “all the necessary information”; “Having finally learned the truth,” Zeus immediately gave Hermes the appropriate orders and, through the mediation of the latter, made it clear to Calypso that “arbitrariness in the localities” would no longer be tolerated - she, “naturally, rushed about, but an order is an order,” etc. Before us, so to speak, is the “official version” - a genre that has, at best, only an indirect relation to reality: the effectiveness of the “command-administrative shout” is now being disputed even in the sphere of economics, but in relation to the “mistress of life and death” its more than obvious inappropriateness reaches the level of frankly fantastic hyperbole.

However, in any “official version” there are always certain “touches” that hint at the real state of affairs; in this case, such a “touch” is the peculiar way in which Zeus was moved to action. As you know, the patroness of Odysseus is Athena, who in this respect and in a number of others (such as the connection with owls) quite transparently resembles Calypso; the last consideration is capable of presenting, perhaps even in a somewhat unexpected light, the events that occurred on Olympus immediately before the “liberation” of Odysseus. To better acquaint the reader with their essence, we will try to present them in dramatic form, in the form of the following scene.

Zeus sits majestically, without uttering a word. The text does not say this directly, but some subtle hints let us understand that this is his permanent state.

Athena enters.

A f i n a. Yes, justice now costs absolutely nothing. Odysseus, for example, is so fair that he would only give in to you, father, but look what it’s like for him: on a distant island, without a ship, without comrades. And this is at the very time when thugs threaten his beloved son with violence. This means how highly you, gods, value justice!

3 e in s. My daughter, what are you saying? After all, you yourself came up with a wonderful plan to rescue Odysseus from all dangers and return him home. As for his son Telemachus, I think you can easily handle this yourself. Well, even if they are preparing an ambush for him, isn’t it within your power to ensure that he doesn’t fall into it? That's right, isn't it? (Addressing Hermes.) And you, dear Hermes, go to Calypso and tell her that everything that Athena came up with here exactly coincides with our will, which, as she should know, should always be strictly fulfilled.

Hermes can only answer something like “I obey, Your Excellency!” in order to develop this “official grotesque” towards the most expressive absurdity; we note, however, that, despite the frankness of the ideological position, the above scene describes a state of affairs characteristic only of formally patriarchal society.

To more clearly explain this thesis, we can cite another scene - this time from modern Japanese life, where “patriarchal values” often also remain at the level of a simple declaration. “Once,” Czech journalists report, “we witnessed bargaining in a peasant family... All the negotiations, naturally, were conducted with the head of the family. The man was sitting on the tatami next to a large hibachi, smoking a cigarette in a long cigarette holder with a serious look. His wife was squatting behind him - a meaningless shadow. great husband. But she followed with great attention what the head of the family said, and when she didn’t like something, she began to very politely whisper in his ear. The man coughed, smoked for a while and then expressed a new thought, as if it had just occurred to him. The shadow behind him nodded his head with satisfaction and continued to listen respectfully.”

Thus, the role of Zeus in Odysseus’s departure from the island of Calypso remains quite vague, and Odysseus himself, in his later account of these events, prefers not to draw any hasty conclusions:

Having taught me how to build a raft, she provided me with plenty of bread and sweet wine for the journey, and dressed me in clothes that were not subject to death, and sent a fair wind, warm and pleasant to the soul; But it was Zeus’s command, she decided – I honestly don’t know about that.

However, Odysseus is a famous “diplomat” and never says anything directly. We'll do this instead: I decided myself.

Before setting off with Odysseus on a further voyage, you should try to answer the question: why did Calypso suggest that Odysseus build a raft, and not, say, a boat, which, among other things, would have been much more “reliable”? This question, we note, already confused the author of this fragment: as commentators note, when describing the construction of a raft, phrases are used that are applicable only in the field of shipbuilding, from which we can conclude that the author already quite vaguely understood why there should be “a raft” and involuntarily “strayed” into a more familiar direction. Thus, the original meaning of the myth was lost, as we see, quite a long time ago; however, turning to the “comparative method” allows us to at least to some extent hope for its restoration.

As is known, among the peoples of Central America there was a widespread legend about a certain Quetzalcoatl, which, among other things, played a fatal role in the fate of the Aztec empire. According to this legend, Quetzalcoatl, a cultural hero who invented all kinds of sciences and crafts, once sailed “somewhere to the east,” promising to return after some time; That's why when exactly from the east The well-known Hernando Cortes arrived in the lands of the Indians, the Aztec priests decided that he was none other than the returning Quetzalcoatl - a conclusion that, as subsequent events showed, turned out to be deeply erroneous. The sad consequences of this mistake can serve as a very successful illustration of the fundamentally important, in our opinion, position that the laws of mythology must be taken into account; The “bloody fog” of the Aztec religious worldview apparently completely deprived its bearers of the opportunity to evaluate reality at least somewhat objectively - otherwise they would certainly have paid attention to some very significant details of the myth of Quetzalcoatl.

First, according to myth, Quetzalcoatl traveled by sea to the east on a raft of snakes, - therefore, from this alone one could conclude that we are not talking about an ordinary sea expedition similar to the one undertaken by Hernando Cortes. Secondly, Quetzalcoatl’s departure had a rather unique motivation: this hero, who had observed strict chastity all his life, “accidentally” (more precisely, under the influence of an intoxicating drink) violated this chastity, and did it in the most radical way - by entering into an illicit relationship with his own sister. This “misdemeanor,” according to the logic of the myth, was the first link in a chain of irreversible consequences in the form of a “raft of snakes,” “sailing to the east,” etc.; This plot is undoubtedly of archaic origin, but the elevation of the “loss of chastity” to the rank of almost a global catastrophe is undoubtedly a new feature. Quetzalcoatl is a typical hero of patriarchal mythology, with a “sharply expressed individuality,” or, in other words, with a pronounced reluctance to “be like everyone else” and “follow the path of all mortals”; Meanwhile, in his sister one can discern the features of an ancient Indian goddess, typologically quite close to Calypso: in any case, we discern in the Aztec myth the already familiar motifs of “marriage with the goddess” and the subsequent departure of the hero on a raft to the east. The fact that the raft is made of snakes will receive a fairly simple explanation if we remember that the snake is a symbol of “given” and, therefore (just like “east”), can express the idea of ​​​​a “new birth”. Thus, Quetzalcoatl’s promise to return takes on a completely meaningful and understandable character; If the Aztec priests had not limited themselves to a literal interpretation of the prophecy about the coming return of their “spiritual leader”, but had considered it in the proper light - from a point of view similar, for example, to the positions of Tibetan Buddhism - the catastrophe that befell the Aztec empire may not have been would be so crushing.

Chapter 11. One island, two peoples and two stories: Dominican Republic and Haiti History. - Differences and their reasons. - Environmental influence in Dominican Republic. - Balaguer. - Environment in the Dominican Republic today. - Future. For anyone who