My Dearest Husband

 

From Calypso's Cave on Ogygia 

Dearest Odysseus,

Calypso insists that I write you. I am entrusting this letter to a Phoenician vessel that put in here yesterday to water. They say that they will deliver it or give it to someone who can.

I arrived here two months ago, after an arduous journey. No one I consulted had ever heard of this place. In the end, I had to go to Aeaea and get advice from Circe. That took some time. For one thing, she seldom has visitors and kept begging me to stay a bit longer. Also, there was an accident with a potion . . . Well, it's a long story, but I actually like the way my nose looks now, much better than before. A snout can be very useful, you know.

Then, after setting out from Aeaea for Ogygia, someone on my ferry recommended this wonderfully palatial hotel in Scheria. She said that the mother-daughter proprietors -- yes, your very own Arete and Nausicaa! -- had only been in business for a year, but that she'd heard wonderful things. So, another detour. They send their love, by the way. I did get a glimpse or two of Alcinous as well. He's doing about as well as can be expected, after the divorce.

I hope you found my note, pinned to the olive-tree post of our bed.

I wish I had never come across that book about heroes! The Hero With a Thousand Faces. I thought it was your own memoir!

I did read it, as you know. I read all about the hero's journey, how you're supposed to have gained wisdom on your journey. And then I thought to myself, "But he's not changed at all!"

I even memorized this part of the book: "The individual, through prolonged psychological disciplines, gives up completely all attachment to his personal limitations, idiosyncrasies, hopes and fears, no longer resists the self-annihilation that is prerequisite to rebirth in the realization of truth, and so becomes ripe, at last, for the great at-one-ment."

Oh, that sounded so . . . wonderful. (I think: I'm not sure about that "at-one-ment" part.) Yes, let him leave home a man too pleased with himself by far, a braggart at times, a glory hound, prone to outbursts, a husband who rarely speaks his true mind even to his dutiful wife. Then let him come home changed, chastened and enlightened, far wiser. More like . . . well, more like me, if I may say so myself.

But did you? Did you come back a new man? In a word, no.

The same old Odysseus. I've talked this over ad nauseum with Circe, Arete, Nausicaa, and Calypso. They all agree that you are, by your very nature, incorrigible. That the very quality that enabled you to survive all your adventures means that you will never change. Only Athena disagrees. (Naturally. She always takes your side . . .)

I don't know whether I'll ever come home. Remember: Telemachus likes light starch in his chiton, and Eurycleia has to be reminded to dust the men's quarters.

Love,
Penelope

P.S. Calypso says you left your toothbrush here. I'm enclosing it in this package.