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As she spoke she drew a table loaded with ambrosia beside him
and mixed him some red nectar, so Mercury ate and drank till he
had had enough, and then said:
"We are speaking god and goddess to one another, and you ask me
why I have come here, and I will tell you truly as you would
have me do. Jove sent me; it was no doing of mine; who could
possibly want to come all this way over the sea where there are
no cities full of people to offer me sacrifices or choice
hecatombs? Nevertheless I had to come, for none of us other
gods can cross Jove, nor transgress his orders. He says that you
have here the most ill-starred of all those who fought nine
years before the city of King Priam and sailed home in the tenth
year after having sacked it. On their way home they sinned
against Minerva, {52} who raised both wind and waves against
them, so that all his brave companions perished, and he alone
was carried hither by wind and tide. Jove says that you are to
let this man go at once, for it is decreed that he shall not
perish here, far from his own people, but shall return to his
house and country and see his friends again."
Calypso trembled with rage when she heard this, "You gods," she
exclaimed, "ought to be ashamed of yourselves. You are always
jealous and hate seeing a goddess take a fancy to a mortal man,
and live with him in open matrimony. So when rosy-fingered Dawn
made love to Orion, you precious gods were all of you furious
till Diana went and killed him in Ortygia. So again when Ceres
fell in love with Iasion, and yielded to him in a
thrice-ploughed fallow field, Jove came to hear of it before so
very long and killed Iasion with his thunderbolts. And now you
are angry with me too because I have a man here. I found the
poor creature sitting all alone astride of a keel, for Jove had
struck his ship with lightning and sunk it in mid ocean, so that
all his crew were drowned, while he himself was driven by wind
and waves on to my island. I got fond of him and cherished him,
and had set my heart on making him immortal, so that he should
never grow old all his days; still I cannot cross Jove, nor
bring his counsels to nothing; therefore, if he insists upon it,
let the man go beyond the seas again; but I cannot send him
anywhere myself for I have neither ships nor men who can take
him. Nevertheless I will readily give him such advice, in all
good faith, as will be likely to bring him safely to his own
country."
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