Odysseus & Polyphemus: The Original

Hello again my dear friends!

Today, I will do the honour of giving a rough background about the original story of Odysseus' encounter with the well-known cyclops named Polyphemus before trying to recreate the myth in my next post.

As some of us might know, Polyphemus is the well-known one-eyed, man-eating cyclops who is the giant son of the god Poseidon and Thoosa. On another hand, Odysseus was the son of Laertes & Anticlea.

Odysseus (Picture credits) 

Polyphemus the cyclops (Picture credits)

Now that we have known their parents and how they are imagined to look like (which isn't that important in my opinion 😂), lets carry on with our story.

According to the Odyssey, Odysseus and his men were returning to his homeland, Ithaca from the Trojan war but found themselves arriving at the island of the Cyclops in Sicily. Once there, Odysseus and his men explored Polyphemus' cave while he was out as the cave was full of food. Not long after, Polyphemus returned with his flock of sheep and seals the entrance of the cave so that nothing and nobody can escape, then he grabbed two of Odysseus' men and ate them. That must have shocked Odysseus & all of Odysseus' men. I'd definitely go frantic and start peeing in my pants if I were in that situation. HAHA!

The next morning, Polyphemus leaves the cave again to attend to his sheep. One thing he does not forget to do again was to block the entrance with the boulder and so Odysseus and his men fails to escape from the cave. After Polyphemus left the cave, Odysseus and his men formed a plot to escape after Odysseus realised that his initial plan to stab him to death was not going to work. With that said, Odysseus discovered a great bludgeon of olive wood when Polyphemus was away and he decided to sharpen the stake with the help of his men and hid it under the ordure.

When evening came, Polyphemus returned to his cave, herding his fleecy flocks into the cave and made sure that none of them were left behind. Again, he snatched up two men and made them his dinner. After feeding himself, Odysseus offered him some wine that they brought along with them. Polyphemus fell in love with the good wine and asked for a refill three times. Soon enough, he became drunk and lost all of his senses. He surely needs to drink more to increase his alcohol tolerance. 🙊 

Once he was drunk, Odysseus answered Polyphemus initial question to him which was what his name was and Odysseus slyly told him that his name was Nobody. Before falling asleep, the drunk cyclops said that in return to Odysseus' offer of good wine earlier, he would eat him last as gratitude. While Polyphemus was busy trying to stay sober in his drunken state, Odysseus blinded Polyphemus' single eye as he has planned with his men. Polyphemus immediately yelled out in pain and started screaming for help from the other Cyclopes. He also exclaimed out loud that Nobody has hurt him. It is of no doubt that all the fuss that Polyphemus made attracted the attention of the other Cyclopes and they gathered outside the cave to see what all the fuss was about. But they eventually left unconcerned because Polyphemus exclaimed that Nobody has hurt him. Besides, the Cyclopes are known to only care for themselves and their family but nobody else around them.

"Each one is the law for his own wives and children, and cares nothing about the others"

The next morning, Polyphemus did his daily routine of taking his sheep out of their pen to graze but being blind (and insecure), he felt the sheep's back to check if the men were trying to escape. Little did he know, Odysseus was one step ahead and told his men to tied themselves underneath the animals, and in that way, they successfully escaped from Polyphemus' cave.

That is basically all that it is about the story of Odysseus and Polyphemus. What a rough and complicated era they lived in back then, ay! Could never imagine the world we live in this day to be that chaotic. 😂

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Either way, a few things to notice and take away about the story above that was extracted from a set of my lectures was that the Cyclopes were living in a sort of Golden Age at that time. This was known because the lack of agriculture was one of the characteristics that Hesiod attributed to his Golden Race which was the first race of men on earth. It was that time and age where the myths were seem to be dealing with a Greek idea of primitive humanity. This evidence was found Hesiod's account where he said:

"These people have no institutions, no meetings for counsels; rather they make their habitations in caverns hollowed among the peaks of the high mountains..."

Nonetheless, although there is no direct evidence mentioning about the characteristics and lifestyle of the Golden Race, the much more violent attitude of later races suggests that the first race lived in harmony. In comparison, from the story above, the Cyclopes were known to have no concern for each other where Polyphemus only cared about his sheeps and the neighbouring Cyclopes only went to Polyphemus' cave because he was making so much noise on the night when he was blinded. Consequently, the hostile nature of the Cyclopes caused Polyphemus to be blinded and the culprit escaped without being caught.

Importantly, based on other stories (which I won't go into details here, sorry!), Odysseus is known to be a strong warrior which is why he would have been able to kill Polyphemus himself while he was asleep. However, Homer seems to disregard this fact in this story which leaves us to think of a moral of the story which is that team work was crucial in overcoming an evil force. 

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I guess this is all I have for all of you today. I hope that this little background gave all of you a little insight and information about the original story from Homer's account. 

Till my next post for all of you! Stay tuned. xx

Signing off,

Gwen.