Polyphēmus

Polyphēmus, in Greek myth, a Cyclops (see CYCLOPES), son of Poseidon. He is represented in Homer's Odyssey as one of a race of savage, one-eyed giants, rearing sheep and goats on an island identified in later literature with Sicily. Odysseus with twelve of his men enters Polyphemus' cave. The latter, having returned with his flocks and closed the mouth of the cave with a huge rock, discovers the intruders and kills and eats two of them. The next evening Odysseus, who has been kept imprisoned in the cave during the day and has seen four more of his men devoured, makes Polyphemus drunk with wine and destroys his eye with a pointed stake. He has told the Cyclops that his name is No-man (Outis), and when the other Cyclopēs come on hearing his cry Polyphemus replies to their enquiries that No-man is killing him; they therefore go away. Next morning Odysseus lashes the rams together in threes, and under each three conceals one of his comrades. When the blinded Polyphemus releases his flocks, they thus escape, Odysseus hiding himself under the shaggy belly of the largest ram. He thereafter taunts Polyphemus, who hurls rocks at Odysseus' departing ship and nearly destroys it. See also Euripides' play CYCLOPS.

In the sixth and eleventh Idylls of the Hellenistic poet Theocritus the boorish Polyphemus is represented as falling in love with the nymph Galatea and being repulsed by her. According to Ovid he crushed Galatea's young lover Acis with a rock; this is the version adopted by John Gay in his libretto to Handel's opera Acis and Galatea (c.1718).