Polyphemus

Odysseus and his men blinding the cyclops Polyphemus (detail of a proto-attic amphora, c. 650 BC, museum of Eleusis)

Polyphemus (Greek: Πολύφημος, Poluphemos), the gigantic one-eyed son of Poseidon and Thoosa, is a character in Greek mythology, one of the Cyclops. His name means "famous"^[1]. Polyphemus plays a pivotal role in Homer's Odyssey.

Polyphemus in Homer's Odyssey

In Homer's Odyssey (Book 9), Odysseus lands on the Island of the Cyclopes during his journey home from the Trojan War. He then takes twelve men and sets out to find supplies. The Greeks find and enter a large cave, which happens to be the home of the great Cyclops Polyphemus. When Polyphemus returns home with his flocks and finds Odysseus and his men, he blocks the cave entrance with a great stone, trapping the remaining Greeks inside. The Cyclops then crushes and immediately devours two of his men for his meal. In the morning, he kills and eats two more. It is said that "rapping them on the ground, he knocked them dead like pups".^[2]

The desperate Odysseus devises a clever escape plan. That night, Polyphemus returns from herding his flock of sheep. He sits down and kills two more of Odysseus' men. But, Odysseus gives to Polyphemus a strong, fragrant, un-watered wine given to him by Maron (son of Euanthes, priest of Apollo, and guardian of Ismarus). The wine makes Polyphemus drunk and unwary. When Polyphemus asks for Odysseus' name, promising him a guest-gift (see xenia (Greek)) if he answers, Odysseus tells him "οὔτις," (translated as "no man"). Being drunk, Polyphemus thinks of it as a real name and says that he will eat "no man" last and that this shall be his guest-gift -a vicious insult both to the tradition of hospitality and to Odysseus. Once the Cyclops passes out from the wine, Odysseus and his men take the giant's huge olive club that they sharpened to a point during that day, while he was away, and harden its tip in the embers of a fire. The men lift the stake and drive it into Polyphemus' eye, blinding him. Polyphemus yells for help from his fellow cyclopes that "no man" has hurt him. The other cyclopes take this to mean that Polyphemus has lost his mind, because he was saying "nobody" attacked him. They conclude his condition is a curse from a god, so they do not intervene.

In the morning, Odysseus and his men tie themselves to the undersides of Polyphemus' sheep. When the blind Cyclops lets the sheep out to graze, he feels their backs to ensure the men aren't riding out, but doesn't feel the men underneath. Odysseus leaves last, riding beneath the belly of the biggest ram. Polyphemus doesn't realize that the men are no longer in his cave until the sheep (and men) are safely out.

Odysseus in the cave of Polyphemus by Jacob Jordaens, first half of 17th century.

As Odysseus and his men sail away, he boasts to Polyphemus that "Nobody didn't hurt you, Odysseus did!" This act of hubris causes problems for Odysseus later. Polyphemus prays to his father, Poseidon for revenge. Even though Poseidon fought on the side of the Greeks during the Iliad, he bore Odysseus a grudge for not giving him a sacrifice when Poseidon prevented them from being discovered inside of the Trojan Horse. Poseidon curses Odysseus, sending storms and contrary winds to inhibit his homeward journey.

The episode in Odyssey is the oldest testament to cannibalism in ancient Greek literature. Walter Burkert detects in the Polyphemus episode a subtext that "seems to offer us something more ancient: threatened by the man-eater, men conceal themselves in the skins of slaughtered animals, and thus, disguised as animals, escape the groping hands of the blinded monster."^[3]

The vivid nature of the Polyphemus episode in the Odyssey made it a favorite theme of ancient Greek painted pottery, both Black-figure and Red-figure pottery.

Polyphemus in Theocritus

The Hellenistic poet Theocritus painted a more sympathetic picture of Polyphemus. The Cyclops of the Odyssey has been recast in the poet's pastoral style which idealized the simple lives of shepherds. In "Idylls" 2 and 6, Polyphemus becomes a gentle shepherd in love with the sea-nymph Galatea, finding solace in song.

Polyphemus in Ovid's Metamorphoses

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The Cyclops also appears in the story of Acis and Galatea. As a jealous suitor of the sea nymph, Galatea, he kills his rival Acis with a rock. Rather than telling the love stories of Odysseus and Aeneas Ovid choses here to tell love stories about the monsters that those heroes experienced. Ovid's first century Roman audience would surely have had a basic knowledge of Polyphemus' role as an uncivilized cannibal in Book IX of the Odyssey, and this episode gives an amusing contrast to that characterization. Polyphemus is shown doing all of the things that a proper Roman suitor would do - trims his beard, composes a poem etc. - which implores the reader to cheer for him, even though his courtship is doomed to fail. Ovid tells this story shortly after the Judgement of Arms, where he shows how perceptions of Odysseus in Ovid's time were very different from the Archaic Period. Ovid appears to be suggesting in his uncharacteristic depiction of Polyphemus that it is possible for the way that readers view a character to drastically change over time.

Although the full story was described by Ovid, it was also mentioned by Philoxenus and Theocritus, and in Valerius Flaccus' version of Argonautica, among the themes painted on the Argos, "Cyclops from the Sicilian shore calls Galatea back."^[4]

Other mythological figures

Additionally, one of the Argonauts was named Polyphemus, "famous". He was the son of Elatus and Hippea, and when he helped Heracles search for Hylas, both were left behind by the Argo. In Iliad I, Nestor numbers "the godlike Polyphemus" among an earlier generation of heroes of his youth, "the strongest men that Earth has bred, the strongest men against the strongest enemies, a savage mountain-dwelling tribe whom they utterly destroyed." No trace of such an oral tradition, which Homer's listeners would have recognized in Nestor's allusion, survived in literary epic.

Polyphemus as an ego-myth

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This story from the Odyssey seems to be yet another of a series (Greek and other) woven around the motive of conquest of the ego. As in the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, and Maori 'Taniwha' legends, and many more, the 'enemy' is gigantic, lives in a cave (shelters within the human frame), and is dangerous. The cyclops Polyphemus (which name has the significant meaning 'famous') has a single eye (the mind, which limits sense-data)and requires trickery to be eliminated. He feeds on the accumulation of qualities (desire for fame or exciting experiences, self-pride, etc) and when Odysseus tells him his name is 'nobody', meaning not qualified by, subject to, or vulnerable from any such desires, can be scotched with impunity. By eliminating the habit of the mind to use the senses, such as vision, for enforcing the faulty reality of the external, phenomenal world, the mind is forced to look inward and become aware of noumenal truth free from distortion. As with all such myths, it was designed to be repeated verbally, acquiring irrelevant embellishments, without losing the essential meaning available to those who could comprehend it. It is significant that Polyphemus is the son of Poseidon, a sea-god, since the ocean/water traditionally represent universal mind, which is the source of limited mind.

In art

Virgil's Aeneid recounts the story of Polyphemus in Book III as Aeneas rescues a Greek soldier by the name of Achaemenides. Achaemenides was left behind by Odysseus as he and his crew escape the island. There is no mention of Achaemenides in the Odyssey.

Polyphemus has been repeatedly portrayed in post-classical art and literature. Nicholas Poussin's painting Landscape with Polyphemus was the subject of a famous essay by William Hazlitt.^[5]

See also

• Greek mythology in popular culture
• Antheraea polyphemus
• La Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea by Luis de Góngora

Notes

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Polyphemus

• Polyphemus and Galatea depicted in statues with a golden harpsichord by Michele Todini, Rome, 1675 at The Metropolitan Museum of Art