"As far as looks go, Penelope is nothing beside thee." But what Odysseus leaves unsaid--the grace of the first woman who possessed his soul--constrains him with a deeper, tenderer power than any of Calypso's charms. Penelope, meanwhile, is pleading that her beauty in the absence of her lord has perished: #xein' êtoi men emên aretên eidos te demas te ôlesan athanatoi hote Ilion eisanebainon Argeioi.#[26] These two meet at last together, he after his long wanderings, and she having suffered the insistance of the suitors in her palace; and this is the pathos of the _Odyssey_. The woman, in spite of her withered youth and tearful years of widowhood, is still expectant of her lord. He, unconquered by the pleasures cast across his path, unterrified by all the dangers he endures, clings in thought to the bride whom he led forth, a blushing maiden, from her father's halls. O just, subtle, and mighty Homer! There is nothing of Greek here more than of Hebrew, or of Latin, or of German. It is pure humanity. Calypso is not a woman, but a goddess. She feeds upon ambrosia and nectar, while her maidens spread before Odysseus the food of mortals. Between her and Hermes there is recognition at first sight; for god knows god, however far apart their paths may lie. Yet the love that Calypso bears Odysseus brings this daughter of Atlas down to earth; and we may reckon her among the women of Homer. How mysterious, as the Greek genius apprehended mystery, is her cavern, hidden far away in the isle Ogygia, with the grove of forest-trees before it and the thick vine flourishing around its mouth. Meadows of snow-flake and close-flowering selinus gird it round; and on the branches brood all kinds of birds. It is an island such as the Italian painters bring before us in their rarest moments of artistic divination, where the blue-green of the twilight mingles with the green-blue sea and the overarching verdure of deep empurpled forest-shade. Under those trees, gazing across the ocean, in the still light of the evening-star, Odysseus wept for his far-distant home. Then, heavy at heart, he gathered up his raiment, and climbed into Calypso's bed at night: #epei ouketi hêndane nymphê. all' êtoi nyktas men iauesken kai anankêi en spessi glaphyroisi par' ouk ethelôn ethelousêi.#[27]