Polyphemus

“ All are alike acted absent from the senses, and before the imagination alone. Hence the Epic Poet has an extraordinary facility afforded him for introducing into his work that order of representation which is called the marvellous. For it is just as easy to the hearer to set before his fancy a giant or a pigmy, as a man; the one-eyed monster Polyphemus, as the beautiful, the graceful, the swift, the strong, the sublime, the terrible Achilles. ”

“ Among the flocks of Polyphemus were several big rams, with fleeces of remarkable thickness and beauty. Of these he took three at a time, and lashed them together, side by side, with osiers, which served Polyphemus for a bed. Each middle ram bore one of the men firmly bound with osiers under his belly; while the two outside rams served to conceal that living burden. Last of all Odysseus provided for his own safety. There was one monster ram, the leader of the flock, with a grand fleece which trailed on the ground, like the leaves of the weeping ash. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then Polyphemus, stretching out his hands, and looking up with his sightless eye to the starry sky, called aloud to Poseidon, god of the sea, to punish Odysseus.
"If he ever reaches his own country," he cried, "let him come late and in an evil case, with all his own company lost, and in the ship of strangers, and let him find sorrows in his own house." ”

“ The idyl displays, in the most graceful manner, the Alexandrian taste for turning Greek mythology into love stories. No creature could be more remote from love than the original Polyphemus, the cannibal giant of the Odyssey.
There is none other medicine, Nicias, against Love, neither unguent, methinks, nor salve to sprinkle,—none, save the Muses of Pieria! Now a delicate thing is their minstrelsy in man’s life, and a sweet, but hard to procure. Methinks thou know’st this well, who art thyself a leech, and beyond all men art plainly dear to the Muses nine. ”

“ He was Polyphemus, one of the Cyclops, sons of Neptune, and workmen of Vulcan. He asked fiercely who the strangers were, and Ulysses told him that they were shipwrecked sailors, imploring him for hospitality in the name of the gods. Polyphemus laughed at this, saying he was stronger than the gods, and did not care for them; and, dashing two unhappy Greeks on the floor, he ate them up at once; after which he closed up the front of the cave with a monstrous rock, penned up the kids and lambs, and began to milk his goats, drank up a great quantity of milk, and fell asleep on the ground. ”

“ Polyphemus, again, though outwitted by a mortal, was none the less a figure almost divine, god-like in his passions and his agony. The whole ancient world teems with anecdotes, all proving the respectability of the old-time giant. ”

“ We shall find the one leading to the other, or rather identified with it, for Polyphemus was himself a shepherd, and all his imagery and associations are drawn from pastoral life. Our English, it is to be borne in mind, is not the [Pg 89] Greek. The poet must have all the benefit of that admission. But at any rate we have done our best not to spoil the original with such artificial modes of speech as destroy all pathos; and feeling has a common language everywhere, which he who is thoroughly moved by it, can never wholly misrepresent. ”

“ Odysseus laughed aloud at the poor monster's simplicity, whereupon Polyphemus lifted up his hands to heaven, and prayed to his sire, the lord Poseidon: "Hear me, thou who holdest the earth in thine arms, if I am indeed thy son. ”

“ To induce Galatea to leave the salt sea waves and linger by his side on the white sandy beach, Polyphemus constantly made the most extravagant promises; but the dainty nymph merely laughed at all his professions, and strolled on the shore only when he was sound asleep. Although she made fun of his love, she was not so obdurate to the suit of Acis, a very fascinating young shepherd, who had no need to call her repeatedly; for she always yielded to his first appeal, joyfully joined him, and sat beside him under the shade of some great rock, listening to his tender wooing. ”

“ It is of no use. Galatea heeds him not, and Polyphemus has to shepherd his love as best he can. Poetry in this idyl is blended with the simplest country humor. The path [Pg 300] os of Polyphemus is really touching, and his allusions to the sweetness of a shepherd's life among the hills abound in unconscious poetry, side by side with which are placed the most ludicrous expressions of uncouth disappointment, together with shrewd observations on the value of property and other prosaic details. ”

“ And yet, by the magic of love and sympathy, even Polyphemus has been rendered pathetic. Theocritus made him so with his poetry; and Handel did as much for him in his musical version of the story, especially in those exquisite caressing passages between Acis and Galatea, (“The flocks shall leave the mountains,” &c.,) which might fill the most amiable rival with torment. ”

“ Here they were hailed from the shore by a miserable object, whom by his garments, tattered as they were, they perceived to be a Greek. He told them he was one of Ulysses's companions, left behind by that chief in his hurried departure. He related the story of Ulysses's adventure with Polyphemus, and besought them to take him off with them as he had no means of sustaining his existence where he was but wild berries and roots, and lived in constant fear of the Cyclopes. While he spoke Polyphemus made his appearance; a terrible monster, shapeless, vast, whose only eye had been put out. ”

“ But Polyphemus lifted away the boulder from the door and sat there in the entrance, groaning with pain and stretching forth his hands to feel if any one were near. Then, while he sat in double darkness, with the light of his eye gone out, Odysseus bound together the rams of the flock, three by three, in such wise that every three should save one of his comrades. For underneath the mid ram of each group a man clung, grasping his shaggy fleece ”

“ But the third scheme of Ulysses is the most subtle of all, and touches the heart of the whole problem, though it be merely a pun. He calls himself Nobody to Polyphemus, who, without sight or insight, is the victim of a word. For a complete man must have not only a double sight from his eyes, but a double insight from his mind, seeing before and after in the latter case especially. The result is when the other Cyclops, roused by the cries of Polyphemus, ask him from outside the cave: What is the matter? he answers, Nobody is killing me. ”

“ Then, overcome by the potent drink, the savage lay down to sleep. Ulysses had prepared the thin end of a huge club of olive-wood, and this, pointed and well hardened in the fire, he and his comrades thrust into his single eye-ball, boring it deep in, "as the shipwright doth an auger." Roaring with pain, and now fairly sobered, Polyphemus awoke, and shouted for help to his brother-Cyclops who dwelt in the neighbouring valleys. ”

“ Those who have considered what has already been said may perhaps be tempted to come to a somewhat different conclusion. The barbarous and boorish Polyphemus spends his time in singing of his love to Galatea, because no one who was not a barbarian and a boor would be such a fool as to waste so much time about a woman. ”

“ Next to them from Larisa came Polyphemus, son of Eilatus, who aforetime among the mighty Lapithae, when they were arming themselves against the Centaurs, fought in his younger days; now his limbs were grown heavy with age, but his martial spirit still remained, even as of old. ”

“ The man of nature has his right when he offers to transform his conduct, and it shows that Ulysses still needs discipline when he scorns such an offer. Polyphemus too is to have his chance of rising, for he certainly has within himself the possibility. Has not the poet derived the noble Arete and Alcinous and institutional Phæacia from the savage Cyclops? But Ulysses negatives Polyphemus just at the start upward. The character which he showed in sacking the city of the Ciconians is in him still, he is not yet ready to return. ”

“ Polyphemus is depicted as in love with the sea-nymph Galatea and finding solace in song: in vi. he is cured of his passion and naively relates how he repulses the overtures now made to him by Galatea. ”

“ It was very kind of Polyphemus, drunk though he was, to stay without moving a muscle, till Ulysses and his men had quite finished boring out his eye with a burning beam that was big enough for a ship's mast, but Baron Munchausen is the only male writer who could offer us anything of the kind, and his is not a case in point. Neither, after all, is Book ix. of the "Odyssey," for the writer is not taking Polyphemus seriously.
The distress which Polyphemus caused to Ulysses and his men by flinging down a bundle of firewood is too graphic a touch not to have been drawn from life. ”

“ We are all pious worshippers of your 'great father' Neptune. We have built him many temples in Greece. Much have we endured by war and land and sea, and it will be very hard on us, after escaping so many perils, to be now roasted or boiled for a supper to Neptune's son."
The reply of Polyphemus is just what might have been looked for from such a sensual barbarian. It is unfilial, and even blasphemous. "A fig," he cries, "for your temples and their gods. The wise man knows of nothing worth worshipping except wealth." ”

“ In the Greek myths we find none of these mysterious elements. The supernatural creations we meet with are innumerable, and no less strange in themselves. But there is nothing in Polyphemus, in Circe, in the Sirens, beyond their physical natures, which can make us look beyond ourselves to understand and fully sympathize with them. Once fully grasp their superhuman endowments, and you feel they act like men on a large scale. ”

“ Here it will be enough to note that there are “tragic” features in this play; Odysseus throughout speaks and acts in a manner as dignified, perhaps more dignified, than in certain tragedies of our poet. The farcical scenes provided by the rascally Silenus, the obscene jests and cowardice of the chorus, and a certain approximation [772] to comedy in the iambic metre [291] used by them or by Polyphemus, are marks of a satyric play. It should be noted, however, that even without them, the Cyclops would be no tragedy. Polyphemus is no tragic antagonist of the hero. ”

“ The Voice is not Human, but that of a Deity; and the Comparison being taken from an Army, renders it more natural with respect to the God of War. So Polyphemus, a mere Mortal, shook the whole Isle of Sicily with his Cries. ”

“ Poseidon. Who dared to do this, my poor Polyphemus?
“Polyphemus. In the first instance, he called himself Outis; but when he had got clear away, and was out of reach of my arrow, he said that his name was Odysseus.
“Poseidon. I know whom you speak of—him of Ithaca, and he was on his return voyage from Ilium. But how did he do it, for he is by no means a man of too much courage?
“Polyphemus. Returning from my accustomed attending of my flock, I caught a number of fellows in my cave, evidently having designs on my herds ”

“ The sons of Gæa are personifications of thunder and lightning; Polyphemus is the heavy vapor that rolls its clouds along the hillside. The clouds are the sheep that he pastures; the sun glowering through the vapor is his single eye (Cox) . More probably he is a mere giant of folklore.
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Illustrative. John Gay, Song of Polypheme (in Acis and Galatea) ; A. Dobson, A Tale of Polypheme; R. Buchanan, Polypheme's Passion; Shelley, The Cyclops of Euripides; Translations of Theocritus by Mrs. Browning and by Calverley; J. S. Blackie, Galatea ”

“ We ran away in a fright, but he plucked the beam all besmirched with gore from his eye, and hurled it from him in a frenzy of rage and pain, shouting as he did so to the other Cyclopes who lived on the bleak headlands near him; so they gathered from all quarters round his cave when they heard him crying, and asked what was the matter with him.
“‘What ails you, Polyphemus,’ said they, ‘that you make such a noise, breaking the stillness of the night, and preventing us from being able to sleep? Surely no man is carrying off your sheep? ”

“ HE following little illustrated effusion is offered to the public, in the hope that it may not prove altogether uninteresting, or entirely inappropriate to the times. The famous pre-historic story of Ulysses and Polyphemus has received its counterpart in the case of two well-known personages of our own age and country. Ulysses of old contrived, with a burning stake, to put out the glaring eye of Polyphemus, the man-eating Cyclops, and thereby to abridge his power for cannibal indulgence ”

“ The Chorus, indeed, following its proper function of mediator between "contending opposites," assures the Cyclops that the stranger tells the simple truth, and that they saw Silenus giving the lambs to him. "You lie!" exclaims the giant "this old fellow is juster than Rhadamanthus: I believe his story." Now, for a few minutes, curiosity prevails over hunger for the flesh of men, and Polyphemus inquires about the race, adventures, life, and conversation of the intruders on his cavern. Ulysses, carefully concealing his real name, gives the required information. ”

“ And I grow hungry for the flesh of men."
In vain Ulysses assures Polyphemus that he has never laid hands on Silenus; that he purchased the lambs for wine, honestly as he thought, and that the lying old Satyr's nose will vouch for the exchange and barter. ”