The divine activity begins work at once: Zeus sends Hermes to Calypso with the Olympian decree. Ulysses, however, is to reach home "without any escort of the Gods or of mortal men;" that is, he must exercise his own free-will tremendously, there is to be no special intervention of the Gods without the corresponding human effort. Note this passage as indicating the consciousness of the poet respecting divine help; it is not to take the place of free agency, but to complement the same. The Hero will have to sail on a raft, "suffering evils;" but he will reach "the land of the Phaeacians, near of kin to the Gods," where he will be "honored as a God," and will be sent home with abounding wealth, "more than he would ever have received at Troy, returning unharmed with his share of the booty." Such is the promise of the world-governor to the self-reliant man; this promise is not fate but foresight on the part of the Supreme God. "Thus is the Hero destined to see again his friends," namely by means of a small raft or float, which he alone must control in his own strength, without the help of God or man. Such is the reward of heroic endeavor, proclaimed by Zeus himself. 2. The messenger Hermes begins his flight down to Calypso, holding his magic wand, with which he puts men to sleep or wakens them, imparting the power of vision or taking it away. He reaches the wonderful island with its grot, the account of which has been a master-stroke in literature, and shows that the description of nature was not alien to the Greek poet, though he rarely indulges in it. One thinks that the passage contains a suggestion of much modern writing of the kind. It is to be noted that this island is mostly a wild product, it has had very little training from its resident. A natural house and garden we see it to be in the main; the senses, especially sight and smell, are gratified immediately by physical objects. There is little indication of Art, possibly a beginning in the singing and weaving; rude nature may have been transformed somewhat in the four fountains and in the trailing grape-vine. But this description is not made for its own sake, as are many modern descriptions of nature; the whole is the true environment for Calypso, and suggests her character. Her name means the concealer, concealed herself in that lone sea-closed island, and concealing others. Undeveloped she is, like nature, yet beautiful; sunken still in the life of the senses, she dwells in her little paradise without any inner scission. But it must be recollected that Ulysses is not native to the island, he has come or rather fallen hither, from a higher condition. He, therefore, has the scission in himself, he longs to leave and be restored out of this realm of mere nature.