C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

The Goddess Calypso

By François Fénelon (1651–1715)

TELEMACHUS followed the goddess as she moved away, surrounded by a bevy of young nymphs, taller by a head than any of her handmaidens, and like some great oak of the forest that spreads its leafy branches above its neighbors. He admired the splendor of her beauty, the rich purple of her long and trailing draperies, her tresses gathered at the neck in a loose but graceful knot, and her sparkling eyes, whose vivacity was tempered by a certain sweetness. Mentor, with modestly downcast eyes, followed Telemachus. On arriving at the grotto of Calypso, Telemachus was surprised to see that despite an air of rustic simplicity, it was provided with all that could charm the eye. There was there neither gold nor silver, neither marble nor columns, neither paintings nor statues. The grotto itself was cut out of the living rock, and its vaulted roof was ornamented with pebbles and sea-shells. Along the walls a young vine had trailed its supple branches, and clothed the grotto with the greenest of tapestries. Gentle zephyrs fanned a delicious fragrance into this favored spot, and cooled the rays of the sun, while from many fountains the sweet waters stole softly away over beds of amarynths and violets, and gathered here and there into crystal pools. Countless flowers sprang from the fresh earth on all sides, and enameled the green turf with the loveliest of colors. Here the eye rested upon a forest of umbrageous trees, among whose leafy branches hung golden apples, and whose blooms, renewed with every season, shed around the most delicious of perfumes. This forest seemed almost to hide the rich meadows, and to cast over them a deep night that no rays of the sun could penetrate, but through which could be heard the songs of birds, and the noise of a waterfall that dashed in foamy masses from the summit of a rock and hastened away across the plain.

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