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Odysseus begins his story by first praising the skill of Demodocus as a story teller and the lavish feast that Alcinous has provided. He then identifies himself to Alcinous’ court as Odysseus, son of Laertes from Ithaca. Before he begins his story properly, he says that he was delayed in his journey by Calypso and Circe, but they never won his heart.
Odysseus begins his story by recounting his army’s journey from Troy to Ismarus, the Cicones’ stronghold. They sacked the city and shared the spoils, but Odysseus’ army delayed their departure, being reluctant to leave, which gave the Cicones time to call for help and mount a counteroffensive against Odysseus’ forces. The Cicones had some success, killing an average of six men from every ship in a battle with Odysseus’ army. Odysseus’ army flees but the ships are then hit by a storm sent by Zeus. They row to the nearest shore where they spend two days and nights. Upon returning to the sea, they are driven off course by a tide-rip and the North Wind past Cythera, south of the Peloponnese, and for nine more days until they reach the land of the Lotus-eaters. Odysseus realises that any of his men who eat the Lotus flowers in this land, as do the native people, become lethargic. They lose motivation and the desire to press on with their journey. He forces any men who have fallen under the spell back to the ships and ties them to the rowing benches as the rest of the crew row them away.
They next reach the land of the Cyclopes. The Cyclopes never cultivate land, since their land is bountiful, and they have no laws or any form of government, nor do they have ships, even though their harbour would provide a perfect port since they have no need of trading. There is an island in the harbour. Odysseus and his men land on the island during the darkness of night. The island has many goats and it also has never been cultivated, even though it is good farming land. At daybreak local nymphs help the men hunt the goats and they have a feast. From the island they can see and even hear the cyclopes. Odysseus decides to take his own ship and crew to the mainland and find out more about them.
When they reach the shore, they find a cavern that has been set up to keep goats and sheep locked away at night. Odysseus picks his dozen best men to explore the cave and leaves the rest of the men to guard the ship. He also takes a skin of wine with him, given to him by Maron, son of Euanthes, for rescuing him, once. The wine is of a superior quality. Odysseus and his men make their way into the cave and discover cheeses and young lambs and kids being held in folds. Odysseus’ men urge him to steal what is there, but Odysseus resists. He says it would be better if the cyclops who lives in this cave were given a chance to show them hospitality. While they await the cyclops’ return, they eat cheese and make a fire. When the cyclops returns from pasture with his sheep he blocks his door with a massive slab of stone, too heavy to be moved by Odysseus and his men. The cyclops then milks his sheep and goats and curdles the milk to make cheese. He lights a fire, himself, and suddenly demands to know who Odysseus and his men are. Odysseus explains who they are and that they are returning from Troy. He expresses a desire to receive the cyclops’ hospitality and says that Zeus avenges the rights of supplicants. The cyclops declares he is not afraid of Zeus nor would he spare Odysseus and his men on account of Zeus. He asks to know where Odysseus’ ship is, but Odysseus, not wanting to give away its location, says their ship was wrecked. At that, the cyclops grabs two of Odysseus’ men, smashes their heads against the ground and then eats them. He then falls asleep. They realise they cannot kill the cyclops because they cannot move the boulder at the entrance to the cave. They would be trapped.
The next day the cyclops milks his animals again and kills two more of Odysseus’ men to eat. He then drives his sheep out to pasture and seals the men in the cave for the day. Odysseus works on a plan of revenge. He sees that the cyclops’ club is the size of a mast of a ship, and so he and his men set about sharpening one end and hardening its point in a fire. Odysseus then makes his men cast lots to see who will wield the weapon with him against the cyclops. That night, the cyclops returns with his sheep. He seals the cave, milks his sheep and goats again and then kills and eats two more of Odysseus’ men. Odysseus offers the cyclops a bowl of the wine he received from Maron, but also expresses his anger at the way the cyclops has treated them. The cyclops drinks the wine and praises its quality. He demands more and Odysseus gives him another three bowls full.
The cyclops asks his name. Odysseus replies that his name is ‘Nobody’. The cyclops promises to eat him last. He then falls over, vomiting wine and human flesh as he lies on the floor of the cave. Odysseus and his men now take the opportunity to use the weapon they have fashioned. They heat the wooden spike in the fire and then press it into the cyclops’ eye, causing it to burst. The cyclops pulls the stake out and cries for help from his fellow cyclopes. When they call from outside, asking if he is being attacked, Polyphemus – the cyclops’ name – calls that ‘Nobody is killing me now by fraud and not by force.’ Odysseus’ trick has worked. The other cyclopes leave. Polyphemus then moves the boulder away from the door and spreads out his arms, hoping to catch any man trying to escape. But he falls asleep. Meanwhile, Odysseus lashes his remaining men to the underbelly of the cyclops’ sheep. When the cyclops goes to let his sheep out to pasture in the morning, he feels the back of each animal to make sure it is a sheep, not a man. His largest ram, bearing Odysseus beneath, is slowest to leave, and the cyclops remembers when it was the fastest of his flock. He feels a sense of solidarity with it.
Once Odysseus and his men escape, they drive the cyclops’ sheep towards their boat. Once offshore, Odysseus calls to the cyclops to taunt him, saying that his blinding is just vengeance for his failure to show hospitality as the gods require. The cyclops, enraged, tears a boulder from a nearby peak and throws it blindly at the boat. The force of the water forces them close to shore again, but they push off, back into open water with a pole. Odysseus again taunts the cyclops and his men express their displeasure at his doing this. Even so, Odysseus continues to taunt the cyclops and even tells him his name. At this the cyclops is reminded of a prophecy that warned him he would one day suffer this fate at the hands of a man named Odysseus, but he had thought this ‘Odysseus’ would be a giant warrior. Polyphemus urges Odysseus to return so that he might receive a guest gift and have Poseidon, who is Polyphemus’ father, guide Odysseus and his men home. Polyphemus expects his father will mend his blinded eye. But Odysseus scoffs at the idea of Poseidon helping Polyphemus. Polyphemus calls upon Poseidon with a prayer, either to prevent Odysseus ever returning home, or if his fate is to return home, that he might take so long that he will return a broken man and find strife when he returns. Poseidon hears his prayer.
Polyphemus now throws a second boulder in the direction of the ship. He misses, and the wave caused by the boulder pushes their ship out further and they return to the island where the rest of their boats are moored. They share out the sheep taken from the cyclops’ cave with the rest of the crews, and Odysseus sacrifices the ram as an offering to Zeus, though Odysseus now knows, as he tells his story to Alcinous’ court, that this did not sway the god in his favour. They set sail from the island, mourning the deaths of their companions.
Book 9 of The Odyssey contains one of the most famous incidents of the story – the Cyclops, Polyphemus – which is central to the plot since Polyphemus is the son of Poseidon and the sea nymph, Thoosa, and it is to Poseidon that he prays as Odysseus and his men escape, bringing down a curse upon them that causes the crew to eventually be killed and Odysseus to be delayed so long on his return home.
Polyphemus’ prayer is matched by Odysseus’ sacrifice of the large ram to Zeus, whom Odysseus hopes to appease. However, Odysseus observes as he tells his story to the Phaeacian court:
So much depends upon the gods, upon whose favour the fortunes of an individual or a people may depend. Alcinous, King of the Phaeacians, is well aware of this when he speaks about the good fortune of his people. Their fortune has been so good that Nausithous, the previous king, had often foretold that one day Poseidon would take retribution upon them for their assistance of travellers across the seas [The Odyssey, Book 8, lines 631 – 641]. The Phaeacians are represented as a model community, with a benevolent king and queen, natural riches and highly skilled sailors.
The fact is that The Odyssey tells the story of several people or groups who exist in degrees of an ideal state, seems significant. An ‘ideal state’ could be described differently, according to one’s perspective. A Christian perspective might describe this state as ‘prelapsarian’ or ‘Edenic’ – that is, before humanity’s Fall and expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Rousseau may term it the state of ‘Natural Man’, meaning people living in a state prior to the formation of complex societies with rules and laws, focussed primarily upon meeting basic needs like food and shelter. It might also be described as ‘Utopian’, a word coined by Thomas More for his book, written in Latin, meaning ‘no place’ or ‘nowhere’, which signalled More’s satirical purpose (an echo of the name given by Odysseus to Polyphemus: ‘Nobody’). All these suggest levels of idealisation, but they each have different meanings for what that is. For want of a better word, I will call these ‘natural’ societies or characters, after Rousseau.
There are instances in The Odyssey – I will give examples below – that display elements of these natural societies (though we might see problems in the way they are run or the way their members behave). These places or people are in tension, even opposition, with the world of the Greek men returning from Troy. The Greeks are highly organised under kings and they are warlike. Their world is predicated upon the domination of land and control of resources. They run farms and they trade goods to supplement their needs. The competition of the suitors for the hand of Penelope in marriage, for instance, is a competition for the status and power such a marriage will confer.
After the Trojan War and Odysseus’ military encounter with the Cicones in Ismarus, the great threat to Odysseus and his men is the possibility they will be thrown off their course home: to be deprived not only of family, but the society that gives them wealth, privilege and purpose.
We see this early in The Odyssey. In Book 4, Odysseus has been trapped on the island of Ogygia with Calypso for seven years. Odysseus is a prisoner, but Calypso has much to tempt him away from his course. Though he is an unwilling lover, she is desirable, and she offers to make him immortal if he remains with her. And Calypso’s Island also has its allurements. I quote the following at length because it is part of a pattern in The Odyssey:
Calypso’s world is a natural phenomenon bursting with life and fecundity so impressive, we are told, that “even a deathless god / who came upon that place would gaze in wonder, / heart entranced by pleasure.” [The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 81 – 83] It is a place uncultivated, a natural cornucopia. We can make a comparison from the Christian tradition. Like Calypso’s island, Eden is a place in which Adam and Eve enjoy in a state of grace before their Fall:
Then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds in the sky and all the creatures that move along the ground—everything that has the breath of life in it—I give every green plant for food.” And it was so.
It is only after Adam and Eve have eaten the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Knowledge and are to be cast out of paradise that they are condemned to live their lives in hardship and toil. The land will no longer produce a natural bounty to keep them alive, which is one aspect of the Fall of Adam and Eve:
I call Adam and Eve’s Edenic or prelapsarian state ‘natural’ for the purposes of comparison here. We have also seen a version of this ‘natural’ society in Homer’s Phaeacians, although they will be the means by which Odysseus returns home, unlike other ‘naturals’ who delay Odysseus. Not only are the Phaeacians graced with incredible navigational abilities across oceans, and enjoy a benevolent protection from the gods, but the royal orchard is an example of the bounteous world we have already seen on Ogygia, Calypso’s island:
In fact, the Phaeacians, despite their willingness to help Odysseus, display the potential to delay him, also. There is, of course, the games held in Odysseus’ honour, which initially do more to distress than please him:
The Phaeacians also have other allurements that might keep Odysseus from his wife and home, if he only allowed himself to succumb to them. Primarily, there is the allurement of Nausicaa, who first finds Odysseus and advises him how to approach her parents for help. Towards the end of Book 7, Alcinous offers Odysseus Nausicaa’s hand in marriage if he will live with the Phaeacians.
The temptation of easefulness continues into Book 9. ‘Natural’ characters and their societies are shown to be a danger in two instances. In the first instance, Odysseus’ men face the challenge of the island of the Lotus Eaters. The danger they present Odysseus’ men is not physical:
The Lotus flowers present a different danger; one of forgetting and lethargy. The flowers are a kind of drug that make the men forget their homes and their purpose, and so they lose their will to act in their own interests. Without intervention the men thus affected would remain a captive of the Lotus-Eaters, or at least to their lifestyle. The Lotus-Eaters are ‘naturals’, also, because they clearly do not have to work to sustain their existence. Subsequently, they are also not organised nor do they appear to have a common purpose. Instead, they are slaves to their own desires and the catatonic state they enjoy.
This is a prelude to the second and more substantial threat faced in this book of The Odyssey: the cyclops, Polyphemus. Polyphemus, we see, is something like a shepherd. He has a flock of sheep and goats which he shelters in his cave at night, and by day he takes them out to pasture. In his cave he milks his animals and from their milk he produces cheese. From this, we see the cyclopes practice a level of subsistence industry for their personal benefit, but they do not cultivate their land and nor are they organised. Odysseus describes them as,
In essence, Homer’s cyclopes exist in a state of natural law, prior to the formation of social bonds and constraints. Rousseau characterises the transition from a natural to a social system in this way:
The passing from the state of nature to the civil society produces a remarkable change in man; it puts justice as a rule of conduct in the place of instinct, and gives his actions the moral quality they previously lacked. It is only then, when the voice of duty has taken the place of physical impulse, and right that of desire, that man, who has hitherto thought only of himself, finds himself compelled to act on other principles, and to consult his reason rather than study his inclinations.
Though they tend flocks of sheep, the cyclopes exist in this state of nature: “each a law to himself”. The cyclops, Polyphemus, is violent and impulsive, as is demonstrated by his killing of the first of Odysseus’ men:
But it is not only this casual violence that is the problem. In this book Odysseus first signals what is normal when he prevents his men stealing the food and possessions of the cyclops, insisting that they honour Xenia, the sacred customs of hospitality that exist between guests and their hosts in Greek society, and wait to see what gifts the cyclops might give them. Though Polyphemus kills several of Odysseus’ men and he tries to sink their boat by throwing boulders in his blind rage, his encompassing crime is that he fails to show hospitality. Odysseus articulates the rules and customs of society for him, as presided over by the gods themselves:
But the cyclops’ response to this injunction is predicated upon brute force and the whims of a ‘natural’ man:
The cyclops’ actions, subject only to his ‘urge’, is the mark of the ‘natural’ man, driven purely by ‘instinct’ and ‘physical impulse’, as described by Rousseau. I’ve chosen to focus on this idea of ‘natural’ societies and characters here – though I am borrowing the term from an Enlightenment work – because they are emblematic of the threat Odysseus faces. Through violence, temptation or the act of forgetting, the desire to return to a world of rules, social connections and purpose is at danger. Odysseus’ delayed return to Ithaca over the course of ten years is merely the outward manifestation of a struggle that Odysseus undergoes, between the allurements of the natural world and the promise of a return to his family, his social position and the responsibilities of leadership.
Polyphemus, the cyclops, is best known from the story of Homer as a brutal, murdering giant. He first appeared in The Odyssey, but over the centuries different legends were told about him.
In Cyclops by Euripides, Polyphemus reveals to Odysseus that he is a pederast: that he likes young boys rather than women.
In a now lost poem from the late 4th century BCE, or perhaps even earlier, Polyphemus is given what would now be called a ‘makeover’. His poem, Cyclops, also known as Galatea, (of which only fragments remain), Philoxenus of Cythera softened Polyphemus by telling the story of his love of Galatea. Galatea is a beautiful sea nymph who rejects him. Hoping to win her affections he serenades Galatea with a variety of instruments, including panpipes and the cithara, an ancient Greek stringed instrument.
Odilon Redon 1914 painting seems to take inspiration from this version of the story. Here we see Polyphemus peering coyly over the ridge of a mountain at Galatea, lying naked and seductive on the side of a hill. His face appears kindly and he seems content merely to passively gaze upon her rather than take action, as we could imagine Homer’s Polyphemus doing.
There are other versions that have come to us from ancient times, but one of the most significant changes to Philoxenus’ poem is by Ovid, who provides Galatea with a lover, Acis, to complicate the story. In Ovid’s version, from his Metamorphoses, the story is largely told from the point of view of Galatea, who is in love with the youthful Acis. Polyphemus, lovesick, is neglecting his flock of sheep and plays on his pipes instead. He sings songs describing Galatea’s beauty. Polyphemus appears to be a pathetic figure, as lovelorn as his version from Philoxenus’ poem. Without the physical allurements possessed by Acis, he attempts to win Galatea with boasts about the wealth of his flocks and the gifts he could bestow upon her. He begs to be given a chance to show the worth of his love, but he harbours violent intentions against Acis. When he finds Galatea and Acis in each other’s arms he becomes furious and threatens to kill Acis. Galatea escapes into the sea and Acis pursues her, begging to be admitted into her world. But Acis is killed by a massive rock thrown at him by Polyphemus. The event recalls what will be the later attempt of the blinded Polyphemus to sink Odysseus’ ship with a boulder. Ovid’s version ends with Acis being transformed into a river-god.
This 1605 painting by Annibale Carracci shows the moment Polyphemus picks up the boulder to throw it at Acis. In the background, we see Galatea fleeing, followed by Acis. We can see Polyphemus’ pipes, used to serenade Galatea, worn on his back.
Robert Duncanson’s portrayal of the land of the Lotus-Eaters takes in a sweeping vista rather than focus upon either of the two groups of people depicted in this painting. On the left is a group of men pulled into shore with a boat. A clothed man seems to be shaking the hands of a near naked individual as a form of greeting. Behind each are their own people. Across the river we see more inhabitants of this land, also nearly naked. Tellingly, there is no evident development. These people live in a state of nature, since all their needs seem to be met by the natural world. This is a romanticised world, with the landscape fading into a distant, numinous vista.
Theodoor van Thulden’s engraving, based on other works, shows Odysseus, helmeted, grabbing three of his men by the hair to force them back to the boat. These men have eaten the Lotus flowers that cause the sailors to forget their homes and enter into a lethargic state in which they do not wish to move. Odysseus tells his Phaeacian audience, “I bought them back, back / to the hollow ships, and streaming tears – I forced them, / hauled them under the rowing benches, lashed them fast . . .” [The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 110 – 112]
I’ve included this pencil and water colour picture by Charles Staniland simply because I like it. It has no connection to the story of The Odyssey but it draws upon the sense of lassitude experienced by those who eat the Lotus flowers, depicted by Homer, to portray this Victorian scene of three women reclined alongside a body of water that has lotus flowers in it. It speaks to a sense of measured decadence and a retreat from the strictures of society which their dresses, hairstyles and general deportment imply.
Tennyson had also written a poem based on Homer’s Odyssey in the early 1830s which was popular and would likely have been familiar to Staniland. The poem captures the sense of lethargy and the sailors’ unwillingness to return to a life of toil and the problems they would face, adapting to an old life that will have changed dramatically in their absence.
This amphora, dated to the early seventh century BCE, is the earliest known representation of Odysseus and his men blinding the cyclops. The scene is faithful to Homer’s version, since the stake sharpened and heated to blind Polyphemus is so large that several of Odysseus’ men are required to help him lift it and drive it into the cyclops’ eye, as depicted here.
This is a reproduction of a sculptural work found in the villa of the Emperor Tiberius in 1957. Some parts of the work are now fragmentary. The group of figures is life size. The work shows Odysseus and his men working together to blind Polyphemus with the sharpened stake as he reclines in a drunken sleep.
Pellegrino Tibaldi’s representation of the blinding of Polyphemus is interesting for some of its details. Its depiction of physical scale – the difference in size between Odysseus and the cyclops – is similar to that from the Villa of Tiberius at Sperlonga. In the bottom left of the painting we see human remains, mostly skeletal remains, but there is flesh still left on a foot in the foreground, as well as a hand. In the middle-to-top left of the painting we see the fire that has been used to heat the stake that is being used to blind Polyphemus. Unlike the scene in Homer, Odysseus here acts alone while his men cower in the background. In the bottom right of the painting we see what looks like pipes, possibly an allusion to the detail Philoxenus introduced into the legend, that Polyphemus played musical instruments and sang, hoping to win Galatea’s affections. Polyphemus’ reaction is far more dramatic than the figure from the Sperlonga sculpture. With his right hand clasping his forehead in sudden pain and the contorted movement of his body, we sense the fear and agony of this moment.
This wonderful painting captures either one of the two times the blind Polyphemus hurls a boulder at Odysseus’ boat, hoping to sink it. All his men lie flat on their backward heave of the oars as they fight to pull their boat through the breaking surf. Odysseus appears to be working the tiller, facing the cyclops and possibly still taunting him, despite the danger. Polyphemus’ long hair and beard along with his nakedness make him look uncivilised: almost like a wild creature, while the upward lift of the boulder suggests his determination and fury.