Cyclops

“ His father, a good-natured Cyclops—hairy and blackened—walked back and forth, turning over the irons, picking up files, giving orders to his assistants with loud shouts, in order to be heard in the din of the hammering. Two sturdy fellows, stripped to the waist, swung their arms, panting over the anvil, and the iron—now red, now golden—leaped in bright showers, scattered in crackling sprays, peopling the black atmosphere of the shop with a swarm of fiery flies that died away in the soot of the corners. ”

“ Just as he had done before, he drove in his flocks, barred the entrance, milked the goats and ewes, and made his meal of two more hapless men, while their fellows looked on with burning eyes. Then Odysseus stood forth, holding a bowl of the wine that he had brought with him; and, curbing his horror of Polyphemus, he spoke in friendly fashion: "Drink, Cyclops, and prove our wine, such as it was, for all was lost with our ship save this. And no other man will ever bring you more, since you are such an ungentle host."
The Cyclops tasted the wine and laughed with delight so that the cave shook. ”

“ The land of Cyclops first, a savage kind, Nor tamed by manners, nor by laws confined: Untaught to plant, to turn the glebe, and sow, They all their products to free nature owe: The soil, untill’d, a ready harvest yields, With wheat and barley wave the golden fields; Spontaneous wines from weighty clusters pour, And Jove descends in each prolific shower, By these no statues and no rights are known, No council held, no monarch fills the throne; But high on hills, or airy cliffs, they dwell, Or deep in caves whose entrance leads to hell. ”

“ Cyclops, I swear by Neptune who begot thee, ⁠241
By mighty Triton and by Nereus old,
Calypso and the glaucous Ocean Nymphs,
The sacred waves and all the race of fishes—
Be these the witnesses, my dear sweet master, ⁠245
My darling little Cyclops, that I never
Gave any of your stores to these false strangers;—
If I speak false may those whom most I love,
My children, perish wretchedly!
⁠Chorus. ⁠There stop!
I saw him giving these things to the strangers. ⁠250
If I speak false, then may my father perish,
But do not thou wrong hospitality.
⁠Cyclops. You lie! ”

“ I quickly drew forth the stake, plunged the end into the fire, turned it about until it was glowing, and then called upon my companions to assist me. A god put courage into our hearts. We all took hold and in an instant had plunged the fiery pole into the sleeper’s great eye. As when a smith dips glowing iron into cold water, thus hissed the Cyclops’ eye as the torch penetrated it. But we pushed it in the deeper and turned it round and round until the blood gushed out and flowed over forehead and cheeks. With a horrible roar the giant jumped up and we all fled into the corners of the cave. ”

“ CYCLOPS.
Nicias, there is no other remedy for Love,
With ointing, or with sprinkling on, that ever I could prove,
Beside the Muses nine! This pleasant medicine of the mind
Grows among men; and seems but light, yet very hard to find:
As well I wote you know; who are in physic such a Leech,
And of the Muses so beloved. The cause of this my speech
A Cyclops is, who lived here with us right wealthily;
That ancient Polyphem, when first he loved Galate
(When, with a bristled beard, his chin and cheeks first clothed were) :
He loved her not with roses, apples, or with curlèd hair ”

“ During the first stage, I found out that Cyclops was mortal: he was liable to the shocking affection of sleep—a thing which I had never previously suspected. If a man is addicted to the vicious habit of sleeping, all the skill in aurigation of Apollo himself, with the horses of Aurora to execute the motions of his will, avail him nothing. "Oh, Cyclops!" I exclaimed more than once, "Cyclops, my friend; thou art mortal. Thou snorest." Through this first eleven miles, however, he betrayed his infirmity—which I grieve to say he shared with the whole Pagan Pantheon—only by short stretches. ”

“ All other Cyclops, with whose burden swell’d
The nymph Thoosa, the divine increase
Of Phorcys’ seed, a great God of the seas.
She mix’d with Neptune in his hollow caves,
And bore this Cyclop to that God of waves.
For whose lost eye, th’ Earth-shaker did not kill
Erring Ulysses, but reserves him still
In life for more death. But use we our pow’rs,
And round about us cast these cares of ours,
All to discover how we may prefer
His wish’d retreat, and Neptune make forbear
His stern eye to him, since no one God can,
In spite of all, prevail, but ’gainst a man. ”

“ Each other nymph, in armour likewise dight,
A Cyclops great became; he fear'd them nought,
But on the myrtle smote with all his might,
Which groan'd, like living souls, to death nigh brought;
The sky seem'd Pluto's court, the air seem'd hell,
Therein such monsters roar, such spirits yell:
26 Lighten'd the heaven above, the earth below
Roared aloud; that thunder'd, and this shook:
Bluster'd the tempests strong; the whirlwinds blow ”

“ Justly art thou punished, monster, that devourest thy guests in thy dwelling. May the gods make thee suffer yet worse things than these!"
Then the Cyclops in his wrath broke off the top of a great hill, a mighty rock, and hurled it where he had heard the voice. Right in front of the ship's bow it fell, and a great wave rose as it sank, and washed the ship back to the shore. But Ulysses seized a long pole with both hands and pushed the ship from the land and bade his comrades ply their oars, nodding with his head, for he was too wise to speak, lest the Cyclops should know where they were. ”

“ Yet still he waited, hoping—wondering if
They still might come, or dreaming that he heard
The sound of far-off voices on the cliff,
Or starting strangely when the she-goat stirred;
But nothing broke the silence of the shore,
And, from that hour, the Child returned no more.
Therefore our Cyclops sorrowed,—not as one
Who can command the gamut of despair;
But as a man who feels his days are done,
So dead they seem,—so desolately bare;
For, though he'd lived a hermit, 'twas but only
Now he discovered that his life was lonely. ”

“ But he answered me saying, "We Cyclôpes pay no heed to Zeus, nor to any of thy gods. In our strength and our power we deem that we are mightier than they. I will not spare thee, neither will I give thee aught for the sake of Zeus, but only as my own spirit bids me. And first I would have thee tell me how you came to our laud."'
'I knew it would be better not to let the Cyclops know that my ship and my companions were at the harbour of the island. ”

“ The strong Cyclops whom they thus called Polyphemus, answered them from the cave: “My friends, No-man is killing me by guile, and not by force!”
And they spoke winged words to him: “If no man is mistreating thee in thy lonely cave, then it must be some sickness, sent by Jupiter, that is giving thee pain. Pray to thy father, great Neptune, and perhaps he will cure thee.” ”

“ They were so frightened that they ran inside the cave, and crouched down at the end of it. Nearer and nearer came the Cyclops, and his tread almost made the earth shake. In he came, with many dry logs of wood on his back; and in came all the sheep, which he milked every evening; but the rams and the goats stayed outside. But if Ulysses and his men were afraid when they saw Polyphemus the Cyclops come in, they were much more afraid when he took up a great stone, which was almost as big as the mouth of the cave, and set it up against it for a door. ”

“ Hullo, there's Cyclops, I'll go and have a look at him." He walked away to where a native was standing holding a pony, a dun-coloured beast, rusty-coated and hideous. One of his eyes was gone, the result of a blow from the fork of a revengeful sais, whose arm Cyclops had playfully chawed; the other was small, and, as usual, vindictive-looking.
Not an engaging-looking mount for a steeplechase, it must be admitted, though the look of the brute appeared at the present moment to give satisfaction to Graeme, particularly the red eyeless socket, at which he attentively gazed. ”

“ Coasting on all that night by unknown and out-of-the-way shores, they came by daybreak to the land where the Cyclops dwell, a sort of giant shepherds that neither sow nor plough, but the earth untilled produces for them rich wheat and barley and grapes, yet they have neither bread nor wine, nor know the arts of cultivation, nor care to know them; for they live each man to himself, without law or government, or anything like a state or kingdom; but their dwellings are in caves, on the steep heads of mountains; every man's household governed by his own caprice, or not governed at all ”

“ He replied nothing, but gripping two of the nearest of them, as if they had been no more than children, he dashed their brains out against the earth, and, shocking to relate, tore in pieces their limbs, and devoured them yet warm and trembling, making a lion's meal of them, lapping the blood; for the Cyclops are man-eaters, and esteem human flesh to be a delicacy far above goat's or kid's; though by reason of their abhorred customs few men approach their coast, except some stragglers, or now and then a shipwrecked mariner. At a sight so horrid, Ulysses and his men were like distracted people. ”

“ The grapes yield good wine. The Cyclops do not come together in a friendly way, but live in caves near the mountain tops, each one in his own den. They do not care much for one another, and each rules his wife and children as he likes.
"There is a little woody island lying at the entrance to the land of the Cyclops, on which swarm numberless wild goats, never disturbed by human beings, for the Cyclops have no ships to take them over. This island is very fertile, but there are no sheep to eat the grass and no people to plough the fields. The goats are the only inhabitants. ”

“ Cyclops! should any mortal man inquire
To whom thy shameful loss of sight thou ow’st,
Say, to Ulysses, city-waster Chief,
Laertes’ son, native of Ithaca.
I ceas’d, and with a groan thus he replied.
Ah me! an antient oracle I feel
Accomplish’d. Here abode a prophet erst, 600
A man of noblest form, and in his art
Unrivall’d, Telemus Eurymedes.
He, prophesying to the Cyclops-race,
Grew old among us, and presaged my loss
Of sight, in future, by Ulysses’ hand. ”

“ As helpless suppliants we fall before thee, seeking the hospitality due to misfortune from all who fear the gods."
"Ho, ho!" bellowed Polyphemus, in gigantic laughter. "Stranger, thou art strange indeed to this land, and a fool to boot, if thou think'st a Cyclops owns any law but his own will. ”

“ The Cyclops Aetnean is cruel and bold,
⁠He murders the strangers
⁠That sit on his hearth,
⁠And dreads no avengers
⁠To rise from the earth. ⁠355
He roasts the men before they are cold,
He snatches them broiling from the coal,
And from the caldron pulls them whole,
And minces their flesh and gnaws their bone
With his cursèd teeth, till all be gone. ⁠360
⁠Farewell, foul pavilion:
⁠Farewell, rites of dread!
⁠The Cyclops vermilion,
⁠With slaughter uncloying,
⁠Now feasts on the dead, ⁠365
⁠In the flesh of strangers joying!
⁠Ulysses. O Jupiter! I saw within the cave
Horrible things ”

“ Cyclopæ′dic, Cyclope′dic. [Gr. kyklos, a circle, and paideia, learning.]
Cyclops, sī′klops, n. one of a fabled race of giants who lived chiefly in Sicily, with one eye in the middle of the forehead: a genus of minute freshwater copepods with an eye in front:—pl. Cyclō′pes.—adjs. Cyclopē′an, Cyclop′ic, relating to or like the Cyclops: giant-like: vast: pertaining to a prehistoric style of masonry with immense stones of irregular form. [Gr. kyklōps—kyklos, a circle, and ōps, an eye.] ”

“ Thee, Venus, thee, both Heav'n, and Earth obey;
Immense thy Pow'r, and boundless is thy Sway.
The Cyclops, who defy'd th' Ætherial Throne,
And thought no Thunder louder, than his own
The Terror of the Woods, and wilder far
Than Wolves in Plains, or Bears in Forests are,
Th' inhuman Host, who made his bloody Feasts
On mangl'd Members of his butcher'd Guests,
Yet felt the force of Love, and fierce Desire,
And burnt for me, with unrelenting Fire. ”

“ Then, unwilling to depart without having at least visited the Cyclops, he took twelve of his bravest men, a skin-bottle full of delicious wine, and set out to find Polyphemus, chief of the Cyclops. On entering the huge cave where this giant pursued his avocation of dairyman, Ulysses and his companions built a fire, around which they sat awaiting their host's return. Before long a huge one-eyed monster drove in his flocks, and, after closing the opening of his cave with a rock which no one else could move, proceeded to milk his ewes and make cheese. ”

“ It was customary to burn the whole victim to him and not reserve part of it, as in the immolations to the remainder of the Gods. He was represented as blowing with his nervous arm the fires of his forges. His vast breast hairy, and his forehead blackened with smoke; while his enormous shoulders seemed borrowed from the Cyclops. Some represent him lame and deformed, holding a hammer in his hand, ready to strike; while with the other, he turns a thunderbolt on his anvil, for which an eagle waits by his side to carry it to Jupiter. ”

“ Among the plays of Euripides which are yet remaining, there is one of these Satyrics, which is called "The Cyclops;" in which we may see the nature of those poems, and from thence conclude, what likeness they have to the Roman Satire.
The story of this Cyclops, whose name was Polyphemus, so famous in the Grecian fables, was, that Ulysses, who, with his company, was driven on the coast of Sicily, where those Cyclops inhabited, coming to ask relief from Silenus, and the Satyrs, who were herdsmen to that one-eyed giant, was kindly received by them, and entertained ”