Read Mythology of the Iliad and the Odyssey Online
Authors: Karen Bornemann Spies
Mythology of the Iliad and the Odyssey (9 page)
“You must think me a fool,” retorted Polyphemus. “I never trouble myself over what the gods want. I have no fear of Zeus.” Then he reached down and grabbed two of Odysseus’ men and swallowed them. After a few bites, he washed down his feast with some sheep’s milk. Giving a mighty yawn, Polyphemus staggered over to the corner of the cave, wrapped himself in a sheepskin blanket, and fell asleep.
Odysseus whispered to his remaining men, “I am tempted to stab the creature in the heart with my sword. But if I do, we will be trapped in this cave. Although we are strong, we cannot roll away the vast stone from the door.”
When morning came, the Cyclops ate two more of Odysseus’ men. Then, he drove his sheep out of the cave and easily slipped the gigantic door-slab back in place.
As soon as the Cyclops was gone, Odysseus revealed a clever plan to escape the monster. Odysseus found the giant’s olive-wood club lying beside the sheep pens. He chopped off a length and sharpened the tip to a stabbing point. He charred the point in the fire to make sure that it was hard. Then, he hid the stick and awaited the monster’s return.
With a mighty thump, the stone was rolled away from the cave’s doorway. “Where are those tasty morsels of men?” said the Cyclops, looking from side to side with his terrible eye. Odysseus’ men tried to hide, but Polyphemus reached down and grabbed two more sailors.
Odysseus found a wooden bowl in the depths of the cave, and filled it with wine that he had brought from his ship. “Please accept my gift and think kindly of us, for we are at your mercy. This is wine, a drink as sweet as ambrosia, the food of the gods. It tastes far better than sheep’s milk,” said Odysseus.
The monster seized the bowl of wine and swallowed every last drop. Odysseus poured him three more bowls, and he drank them down. The Cyclops had never before sampled wine, and he soon became drunk. “Yes, I will offer you a guest gift,” he burped. “What is your name?”
Odysseus answered, “My name is Nobody.”
“Well, Nobody,” laughed Polyphemus, “my gift to you is that I will eat you last.” With that, he fell over backward in a drunken sleep.
Quickly, Odysseus and his men carried their sharpened stick over to the giant’s fire and stuck the pointed end into the flames. Then they plunged the red-hot stick into the monster’s terrible single eye, twisting and turning it, back and forth, until they blinded the Cyclops.
The monster let loose a terrible roar that echoed off the cavern walls. He yanked the stick from his eye and blood gushed out. Crying out in pain, he tossed the stick aside. He called to his neighboring Cyclopes for help.
“What is the matter, Polyphemus?” they asked. “You have awakened all of us in the middle of the night. Who is bothering you?”
“Nobody is trying to kill me,” answered Polyphemus.
“If you are by yourself and nobody is trying to harm you, then Zeus must have sent a deadly disease to plague you,” said the Cyclopes. “You should pray to your father, Poseidon, for help.” With that, the other Cyclopes lumbered off.
Then, Odysseus told his remaining men of a plan that would save them from the monster. “In the morning, before Polyphemus lets his sheep out to graze, we will tie ourselves under the bellies of the sheep. With his blinded eye, the Cyclops will not be able to see us.”
When the new day dawned, Polyphemus opened his cave door to allow his sheep out to pasture. As the animals went out the cave door, the blinded Cyclops felt around for the men who had caused him such a terrible injury. But all he could feel were the backs of the sheep.
When the sheep reached the meadows where they grazed, Odysseus and his men let go of the woolly animals. They dashed to their boat, taking some of the sheep with them. With everyone safely on board, the ship quickly put out to sea. Odysseus called out in a loud voice, “It was no weak coward you had trapped in your cave. It was I, Odysseus, who tricked you, Polyphemus!”
Rage boiled over inside the Cyclops. He tore off the top of a mountain and heaved it so hard that it landed in front of Odysseus’ ship. A huge wave arose and nearly knocked Odysseus and his men off their boat. But the sailors rowed hard, and the ship escaped.
Polyphemus was so furious that he bellowed out to his father, Poseidon. “Hear me, father, lord of the seas. Grant that Odysseus will never reach home. Or at least make it that he arrives home late, a broken man. Let him find a world of pain at home.”
The god of the sea honored the prayer of Polyphemus, promising that Odysseus would not reach his home in Ithaca again for ten years and that he would lose all of his men on his journey.
Q:
Describe Polyphemus.
A:
He was a gigantic, one-eyed monster with straggling hair and a wild beard.
Q:
To which god was Polyphemus related?
A:
His father was Poseidon, god of the sea.
Q:
When Polyphemus found Odysseus and his men inside his cave, what did he do?
A:
He ate two of the men and rolled a large stone in front of the cave’s door, trapping Odysseus and the rest of his crew inside.
Q:
When Polyphemus asked Odysseus his name, what did the hero say?
A:
He said, “My name is Nobody.”
Q:
Describe how Odysseus attacked the Cyclops.
A:
He offered Polyphemus wine that made him fall into a drunken sleep. Then Odysseus and his men blinded Polyphemus by stabbing the monster in the eye with the sharpened stick he had made.
Q:
Who did Polyphemus tell the other Cyclopes was trying to kill him and how did they react?
A:
He said that “nobody” was trying to kill him. The other Cyclopes said, “If nobody is trying to harm you, then Zeus must have sent a deadly disease to plague you.” The Cyclopes told Polyphemus to pray to Poseidon for help.
Q:
How did Polyphemus strike back at Odysseus after he escaped?
A:
He tore off a mountaintop and threw it at Odysseus’ ship.
Q:
How did Poseidon grant his son’s request?
A:
He promised to delay Odysseus’ return home.
According to Professor Barry B. Powell, Homer gives the ancient Greek custom of
xenia
, the hospitality shown to guests, a new twist in this story: “The gift of Cyclops parodies, by inversion, the custom of
xenia
—Odysseus will be eaten last!”
3
The tool that Odysseus used to blind the Cyclops, according to Powell:
... is like a bow drill, whose forward thrust comes from the weight of the user as he leans against it. The twist of the drill came from a long thong wrapped in a single turn around it: men at each end pushed and pulled so it turned, now clockwise, now counterclockwise, like the drill of someone starting a fire by friction. But the simile is somewhat mixed: How could Odysseus both guide the stake and twist it, especially if its weight was being carried by four other men?
4
Polyphemus learned from a prophecy that Odysseus would visit him:
A seer named Telemus had once warned Polyphemus that a man named Odysseus would blind him. But Polyphemus was too heartbroken to pay attention to this oracle. The grotesque Cyclops had loved the sea nymph Galatea, but she only had eyes for the handsome human youth Acis. Polyphemus had crushed his rival under a giant rock. But Galatea only hated him more after this murder, while Acis—in answer to her prayers—was changed into a river god.
5
According to scholar and historian Michael Grant:
Odysseus resembles the typical hero of the
Iliad
in his unconquerable, enduring great heart. By this he survives fantastic obstacles.... He overcomes them by the sheer force of his character, amazingly resourceful, yet recklessly ferocious. He is the type, for all time, of a man who has battled with the varied storms of life and won. Miraculous though his adventures are, yet they illuminate his character and confirm his violent belief, like Ivan Karamazov’s, in his own powers.
6
However, even though Odysseus resembled the typical hero of the
Iliad
, Grant noted that he exhibited one characteristic difference, which he demonstrated in his dealings with Polyphemus:
Yet there is one exceptional feature about this heavy-jawed, beetle-browed hero. He is tremendously clever, far more clever than any hero of the Iliad. In his heroic character an unexpectedly prominent, indeed preeminent, part is played by intelligence, assuming multifarious forms from strategic and tactical sageness to the weaving of an endless web of lies and fancies.
7
Writers of the classical period in Greek history, according to Grant, held negative opinions of Odysseus’ cleverness:
The classical fifth century usually, though not always, regarded Odysseus as an evil product of over-cleverness: cruel, corrupt, sophistical and deceitful, a hardboiled confidence man. “May I never,” said the old-fashioned, aristocratic Pindar, “have a character like that, but walk in straightforward ways.” To Sophocles, Odysseus is a magnanimous hero in the
Ajax
, but a cold blooded schemer in the
Philoctetes
. So he is in several plays of Euripides, written in the age of the Peloponnesian War, when many people thought that cleverness was ruining Athens.
8
CIRCE, THE BEWITCHING QUEEN
INTRODUCTION
After Odysseus and his men escaped from the Cyclops Polyphemus, they sailed to the island of Aeolus, King of the Winds. Aeolus lived on the island with his six sons, who were married to his six daughters. He was known for his hospitality, but as we shall see in the story, Odysseus’ men abused this hospitality, with disastrous results for the crew. Ultimately, Odysseus ended up on the island of Aeaea, home of the sorceress Circe.
Circe was the daughter of the Sun and Perse, a nymph. Her brother, Aeëtes, was the father of Medea, another sorceress. Although Circe used a wand, she did not resemble a witch as we usually think of one. She did not wear a black hat and robe or have a wart on her nose. Instead, Homer called her “The Bewitching Queen of Aeaea.”
1
She wore her hair in long braids and sang with a melodious voice.
Her island has been identified with the island of Ischia in the Bay of Naples.
2
In about 800
B.C.
, Greeks from the island of Euboea, east of Attica, sailed in small open boats all the way to Italy, where they settled the first Greek colonies. The
Odyssey
, according to some experts, may have been written down on Euboea at about this time, and those who listened to the tales, especially the Greek seafarers, associated the adventures of Odysseus with specific geographic locations around Italy.
3
This story uses a device similar to one used in the story about the Lotus-Eaters, a food that produces the loss of memory. However, in this case, the loss of memory is caused by a magical potion that Circe made.
In this tale, Hermes, Zeus’ messenger, gives Odysseus a protective herb. It was the magic herb
moly
, whose “root is black and flower as white as milk.”
4
Moly served as an antidote, to counteract the effects of Circe’s magical drugs.
Zeus had given Aeolus, the King of the Winds, the power to rouse the winds or to calm them. When Aeolus heard of the struggles of Odysseus and his sailors to reach home, he decided to help them. In keeping with the custom of hospitality, Aeolus gave Odysseus a special gift, a leather bag that held all the strongest, most dangerous winds. Aeolus cautioned Odysseus not to open the bag if he wanted to reach home safely.
Unfortunately, some of the crew thought King Aeolus had given Odysseus a sack full of gold, which he was unwilling to share with them. One day, when the ship was nearly home, Odysseus took a nap. This was the opportunity for which his men had been waiting. They opened the bag, but there was no gold inside. Only fierce winds rushed out.
The winds pushed the ships to the land of the Laestrygonians, a race of gigantic cannibals. These creatures used rocks to smash all of Odysseus’ fleet, except for his ship, which was anchored in a different place. They also ate up all Odysseus’ men except for those manning his vessel.
Odysseus’ tired and discouraged crew put back out to sea and eventually came to the island of Aeaea, the land of Circe, the sorceress. She had been expecting Odysseus or someone like him, because a prophecy foretold that a heroic man would someday defy her magic.
Odysseus sent out a search party led by his trusted and brave warrior, Eurylochus. Deep in the woods, they came to a palace. Built of magnificent stone, it rose high above the forest. Mountain lions and wolves roamed the grounds. These beasts approached Odysseus’ men, who backed away, fearful that the animals would attack. But the creatures only pawed at the ground and swished their long tails.
Just then, the men heard unearthly singing coming from inside the palace. One of the warriors peered inside. “I can see a lovely woman with long braids working at her loom.”
After the men called out to her, the woman opened the gleaming palace doors. “Welcome! I am Circe. Please, come inside.”
All the men rushed in except for Eurylochus, who sensed a trap. Circe invited them to sit on high-backed chairs. In drinking bowls, she mixed a fragrant brew of cheese, barley, honey, and wine. But the men did not see her stir in drugs. These drugs would erase their memories of home.