The author analyzes the characters of Nausicaa and Calypso in Homer and in Kazantzakis' Odyssey. Nausicaa is the purest female character in the work of Homer, keeping that feature in Kazantzakis' poem, although with a slight difference, because she dies not appear acting, except when she comes to Ithaca to marry Telemachus. The insinuation, which can be gathered from Homer's Odyssey, that Nausicaa might have begun to love Odysseus, does not exist in Kazantzakis. To the Odysseus of the Cretan poet, the vision of a beautiful and pure young woman and the possibility of building a new home in a happy land constitutes one of the three temptations he suffered during his long journey home. He overcame it and thought of the princess as an ideal wife for his son. So Kazantzakis accepts one of the suppositions of ancient mythographers. Calypso, the most mysterious female figure in Homer, keeps in the modern poem her essential symbology: she represents the temptation of attaining immortality, that is to say, to overcome the human condition. In both poems Odysseus rejects that temptation and reaffirms his will to be only a human being. However, in the modern work there is no intervention of the gods to achieve Odysseus' exit from Ogigia. The sailor, who has already forgotten the human world, seeing a piece of wood carried by the sea, recognizes in it an oar and his memory awakens. He builds a raft and starts sailing while listening the goddess' song, who, just then, begins to feel human.
Castillo Didier, M. (2005). Nausicaa and Calypso.(the Odyssey in the Odyssey). Byzantion Nea Hellás, (24). Retrieved from https://analesfcfm.uchile.cl/index.php/RBNH/article/view/18521
