Polyphemus

The sharpened wooden beam glowed from the Cyclops’s fire. Odysseus and his men lifted it and drove it into Polyphemus’s single eye. They turned it as a shipwright turns a drill. Blood ran around the burning wood, while the eyelid and lashes were seared. Polyphemus cried out and called to the neighbouring Cyclopes for help. When they asked who was hurting him, he answered, “Nobody.” Believing that nobody was injuring him, they went away.

The Greeks had been trapped in Polyphemus’s cave. He had killed and eaten four of them. The next morning he left to graze his livestock. When he returned that evening, he ate two more men and drank a great deal of wine. He then demanded to know the name of the Greek leader. Odysseus answered that his name was “Nobody”. After Polyphemus fell asleep, Odysseus and his remaining companions heated and used the wooden beam to blind him.

When the flocks left the cave for pasture, Polyphemus opened the entrance and felt the sheep as they passed. Odysseus tied three rams together, hid beneath the largest, and escaped with them. He then released his companions from beneath the animals and drove the flock towards the ships. Once they were sailing away, Odysseus shouted back and revealed his name. He called himself Odysseus, son of Laertes, whose home was in Ithaca.

Polyphemus groaned and remembered an ancient prophecy. Telemus, son of Eurymus, had been a tall and excellent seer who prophesied for the Cyclopes. The prophecy had foretold that Polyphemus would lose his eye to Odysseus. Polyphemus had not understood its meaning before the blinding. The injury brought him the hatred of Poseidon, whose son he was, and Poseidon delayed Odysseus’s return to Ithaca.

Odysseus offered Polyphemus strong, undiluted wine, and the Cyclops drank until he fell into a drunken sleep. When Polyphemus asked his name, Odysseus gave the false name Nobody. The Cyclops had imprisoned the Greeks in his cave and had already seized and eaten some of Odysseus’s men. Odysseus and his surviving comrades then drove a sharpened club or olive branch into Polyphemus’s single eye. The tip had been heated in the fire.

Polyphemus cried out to the neighbouring Cyclopes for help. They came and asked who was hurting him. When he answered Nobody, they went away, thinking that no one was attacking him. Polyphemus opened the cave when his flocks went out to pasture and felt the animals as they passed. Odysseus tied rams together and hid beneath the largest. His men escaped beneath the sheep as well. They reached the ships with the animals, and Odysseus released his comrades.

As the ship sailed away, Odysseus called back and revealed his true name. He named himself Odysseus, son of Laërtes, whose home was in Ithaca. His companions tried to stop him. Polyphemus had already thrown a rock into the sea, nearly driving the ship back to land. Odysseus called out again despite their fear. Polyphemus then remembered that a prophet had once foretold that Odysseus would blind him.

Polyphemus raised his hands towards heaven and prayed to Poseidon, whom he called his father. He asked that Odysseus should never reach Ithaca alive. If Odysseus was fated to return, Polyphemus asked that he should arrive late, after many troubles, having lost all his companions, travelling on another man’s ship, and finding trouble in his house. Poseidon heard the prayer. Polyphemus seized a much larger rock and hurled it after the ship. It fell close to the rudder, and the sea surged around it. The blinding of Polyphemus then brought Odysseus the hatred of Poseidon and delayed his return to Ithaca.

Polyphemus sat on a cliff above the sea while his flocks spread around him. He had abandoned his former fury and no longer attacked travellers. Ships that reached his island left safely. Taking up an instrument made from many pipes, he played until the hills and water echoed with his song. He sang mournful verses to soften Galatea’s heart, praising her beauty and reproaching her for refusing him.

He tried other ways to win her. He boasted of his strength and size, and of his appearance as he saw it in the clear water. He said that even Zeus was not larger than he was. He described the hair covering his face and shoulders as a grove. He also offered her gifts. On one occasion, he found two bear cubs lying so close together that they could scarcely be told apart. He took them for Galatea to keep as playthings and called her from the green waves to accept them. He promised her a life as a shepherd’s companion in Sicily, with his flocks around them.

Galatea did not love him. In one account, she told Doris that there was something manly about the Cyclops, despite his single eye, and that he saw as well with it as another man might see with two. Doris mocked her, saying that Polyphemus was an ugly and ill mannered brute who could make a meal of a traveller. Galatea answered that he was the son of Poseidon and that Polyphemus had noticed her, rather than Doris. The exchange did not lead to marriage or affection. Polyphemus never won her.

Galatea loved Acis instead, a beautiful young prince and the son of Pan and a Naiad. Polyphemus discovered the pair together and became fiercely jealous. He killed Acis. Acis was then changed into a river god, so the story ended with his transformation rather than his death alone.