9.161-192

Lines 175–176 also appear verbatim at 6.120–121 and 13.201–202. Like the stranger who lands on the shores of Scheria and Ithaka, Odysseus is curious but also aware of the possible dangers that might await him. We know, as he does not, that these creatures are not even human, much less hospitable. The anthropological exploration continues.

Odysseus and his crew arrive on the island of the Cyclopes to find a telling scene. Near the water is a lofty cave, overgrown with laurel, the first we have seen since Book 5, when Hermes arrived at the cave of Calypso. Comparing the two caves is instructive. The earlier episode opens with the nymph inside the cave, spinning and singing, a threatening combination in the Odyssey:

πῦρ μὲν ἐπ᾽ ἐσχαρόφιν μέγα καίετο, τηλόσε δ᾽ ὀδμὴ 
κέδρου τ᾽ εὐκεάτοιο θύου τ᾽ ἀνὰ νῆσον ὀδώδει
δαιομένων: ἡ δ᾽ ἔνδον ἀοιδιάουσ᾽ ὀπὶ καλῇ&
ἱστὸν ἐποιχομένη χρυσείῃ κερκίδ᾽ ὕφαινεν.
ὕλη δὲ σπέος ἀμφὶ πεφύκει τηλεθόωσα,
κλήθρη τ᾽ αἴγειρός τε καὶ εὐώδης κυπάρισσος.
ἔνθα δέ τ᾽ ὄρνιθες τανυσίπτεροι εὐνάζοντο,
σκῶπές τ᾽ ἴρηκές τε τανύγλωσσοί τε κορῶναι>
εἰνάλιαι, τῇσίν τε θαλάσσια ἔργα μέμηλεν.
ἡ δ᾽ αὐτοῦ τετάνυστο περὶ σπείους γλαφυροῖο
ἡμερὶς ἡβώωσα, τεθήλει δὲ σταφυλῇσι.
κρῆναι δ᾽ ἑξείης πίσυρες ῥέον ὕδατι λευκῷ,
πλησίαι ἀλλήλων τετραμμέναι ἄλλυδις ἄλλη.

A great fire was burning in the hearth, and the sweet smell 
of split cedar and sweetwood wafted across the island 
from their fires. Inside, the goddess sang in a lovely voice 
while she was weaving, back and forth with a golden shuttle. 
Around the cave a forest flourished, 
of alder, black poplar, and fragrant cypress, 
and birds with spreading wings made their nests there, 
horned owls and hawks and long-beaked sea birds 
like ravens but doing their work on the water. 
And across the opening of the hollow cave 
a vine flourished, heavy with ripened grapes. 
Next to it were four fountains, all in a row, running 
with shining water, turned to flow in different directions.

Odyssey 5.59–71

Everything about this venue is redolent with feminine seductiveness. As enclosed spaces, caves can be threatening to men in the poem, a physical symbol of the oblivion portended in the nymph’s name, Καλύψω, “I will smother.” The combination of fragrance, shiny things, and ambrosia—soon to be served to Hermes by the nymph (5.93)—is often associated with trickery in the Odyssey. The lush vegetation hints at unrestrained fertility, yet the fountains suggest that there is some kind of order imposed, perhaps by goddess’s voice, which seems to float over it all. Singing in the Odyssey is gendered, the male bards offering narratives of the famous deeds of gods and heroes, while the females make mysterious music that seems to carry a power threatening to men. The former contribute to the human project of civilization, creating kleos with its attendant status; the latter send out alluring sounds that surround the listener, blurring the outlines of human order. Calypso, Circe, and of course the Sirens, all sing enticingly (5.61; 10.221; 12.44, 184–191). When he crawls onshore at Scheria, Odysseus is on the alert for just this sort of threat:

"ὤ μοι ἐγώ, τέων αὖτε βροτῶν ἐς γαῖαν ἱκάνω;
ἦ ῥ᾽ οἵ γ᾽ ὑβρισταί τε καὶ ἄγριοι οὐδὲ δίκαιοι,
ἦε φιλόξεινοι καί σφιν νόος ἐστὶ θεουδής;
ὥς τέ με κουράων ἀμφήλυθε θῆλυς ἀυτή:
νυμφάων, αἳ ἔχουσ᾽ ὀρέων αἰπεινὰ κάρηνα
καὶ πηγὰς ποταμῶν καὶ πίσεα ποιήεντα.
ἦ νύ που ἀνθρώπων εἰμὶ σχεδὸν αὐδηέντων;"

"Ah me, what sort of people live here?;
Are they savage and fierce and lacking justice
or hospitable to strangers and possessing of godly minds?
That’s the voice of girls wafting around me,
or nymphs, who haunt the steep summits of the mountains
and springs of rivers and grassy meadows.
Am I near people who speak my language?"

Odyssey 6.119–25

The cave of Polyphemus, by contrast, sends mixed signals. Hollow and dark, its edges softened by laurel, the space radiates danger for men. Its immediate surroundings are more reassuring: in front of the opening, flocks rest tranquilly in a space fenced—and thus structured—by large boulders, pines, and oaks, much like the pens of human shepherds. But this is no ordinary herdsman. He is πελώριος, “huge,” “monstrous,” the word used elsewhere to describe Skylla (12.87) and the beasts that faun on Circe (10.219). Not only is he monstrous, but apart (ἀπόπροθεν), alone (οἶος). Both words resonate with the typical isolation of the hero, separated from his fellow humans by his enormous gifts and often by his arrogant temperament. For a male hero, to be alone follows, as we have said, from his inborn nature.

So far then, the language signals a curious amalgam, a monstrous yet potentially heroic shepherd, living in a dangerously feminine cave, we might say. The next verses add to the crosscurrents, pressing the non-human aspect of the Cyclops:

καὶ γὰρ θαῦμ᾽ ἐτέτυκτο πελώριον, οὐδὲ ἐῴκει
ἀνδρί γε σιτοφάγῳ, ἀλλὰ ῥίῳ ὑλήεντι
ὑψηλῶν ὀρέων, ὅ τε φαίνεται οἶον ἀπ᾽ ἄλλων.

For indeed he was a monstrous wonder to behold, not like
a bread-eating human, but rather a woody peak
in the tall mountains, that appears alone, apart from the others.

Odyssey 9.190–92

With Odysseus and his crew on the threshold of the cave, Homer paints a complex portrait of the creature they are about to meet. He is frightening, to be sure, physically intimidating, sharing with Calypso and the Lotus Eaters the potential for erasing the Greeks from human memory. And yet, his tidy husbandry of flocks hints that the role of chaos monster might not quite fit him.

Further Reading

Nagler, M. 1996. “Dread Goddess Revisited.” In Schein, S. 1996. Reading the Odyssey. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 141–162.

Schein, S. 1996. Reading the Odyssey. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 22–23.

Thalmann, W. 1992. The Odyssey: An Epic of Return, 47–50. New York: Twayne Publishers.

Tracy, S. 1990. The Story of the Odyssey, 31–33. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Van Nortwick, T. 1980. “Apollonos Apate: Associative Imagery in the Homeric Hymn to Hermes 227–292.” Classical World 74, 1–5.

———. 2008. The Unknown Odysseus: Alternate Worlds in Homer’s Odyssey, 50–53. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.