Chapter summary
Odysseus answers Alcinous, who asked him for his name and his story. He begins by praising the feast they are in: for him, nothing is more beautiful than the whole people at festival, the guests listening to the aoidos, the tables full and the wine running in the cups. He says the king wants to know his sorrows, which will make him suffer even more, and that they are so many he does not know where to begin. He begins with the name, so that the Phaeacians will know him and so that he may be their guest even though he lives far away, after escaping the cruel day: he is Odysseus, son of Laertes, known to all for his stratagems, with his fame reaching the sky. He describes Ithaca, with Mount Neritus and the neighboring islands, rugged but a good nurturer of young men, and says he sees nothing sweeter than the land itself. He recalls that Calypso and Circe wanted to keep him as a husband without persuading his mind, because nothing is sweeter than the homeland and the parents, even for one who lives in a rich house in a foreign land.
Odysseus turns to the return, which, he says, Zeus granted him when he left Troy: the wind carried him to the Cicones, at Ismarus, where he sacked the city, killed the men, and divided the women and goods among his companions, so that no one would be left without an equal share. He ordered them to flee at once, but the companions, foolish, did not obey: they drank a great deal of wine and slaughtered flocks on the beach. Meanwhile the Cicones called other Cicones from the interior, more numerous and skilled in fighting from chariots and on foot, and they came back at early dawn, as numerous as the leaves and flowers of spring. They fought beside the ships, and the Achaeans held out while the day grew, but at evening they gave way, and six well-armed companions from each ship died. The rest fled, relieved to escape and saddened by the dead, and the ships set sail only after he called out the name of each dead companion three times.
Zeus then sends the north wind Boreas and a storm that tears the sails of the ships, and the men row toward land, where they remain two days and two nights, worn out by fatigue and grief. On the third day, Odysseus says, he would have reached his homeland safe, but the current and Boreas turned him aside as he rounded Cape Malea, beyond Cythera. Nine days of baleful winds carry him, and on the tenth they reach the land of the Lotus-Eaters, who eat a flower. They draw water and eat, and Odysseus sends two men and a herald to learn what people live there. The Lotus-Eaters do them no harm, but give them lotus to eat, and whoever tastes the sweet fruit no longer wants to return with news or go home, and wants only to stay among them, eating lotus and forgetting the return. Odysseus drags them back weeping to the ships and ties them under the benches, and orders the rest to board quickly, so that no one, having eaten lotus, forgets the return.
From there they reach the land of the Cyclopes, a proud people without laws, who, trusting in the gods, neither plant nor plow, because everything grows without sowing, and Zeus's rain makes it grow. They have no assemblies to deliberate and no laws: they live on the peaks, in caves, and each one lays down the law for his children and wives, caring nothing for the others. In front of the harbor lies an island of wild goats, where no hunters go, without tillage or flocks, because the Cyclopes have no ships or shipwrights to build them and visit the island; it would be good land, with meadows, vines, fertile soil, a harbor needing no mooring lines, and a spring. They arrive by night, guided by some god, in the midst of mist, with no moon, and cannot see the island. In the morning, amazed, they explore the island, and the nymphs stir up the mountain goats; they hunt, twelve ships with nine goats each and ten for Odysseus, and they spend the day feasting with the wine they had taken from the Cicones. From across the water they see smoke and hear the voices of the Cyclopes and the bleating of their flocks.
The next day, Odysseus gathers his companions and orders them to stay on the island, while he goes with his own ship and crew to the neighboring land to see who these men are, whether insolent, savage, and unjust, or hospitable and god-fearing. Near the sea they find a high cave, shaded by laurels, with a large courtyard of stones, and they see that a huge man lives there, who herds alone, far from the others, knows only lawless deeds, and looks more like the peak of a high mountain than a bread-eater. Odysseus orders the rest to guard the ship and goes with twelve chosen companions, carrying a skin of dark, sweet wine, a gift from Maron, priest of Apollo at Ismarus, whom he and his men had spared, with his wife and son, out of respect for the god. He also takes provisions, because his brave spirit told him he would meet a man of immense strength, wild, who knows neither justice nor customs well.
They do not find the owner, who is pasturing the flock; they see cheeses, pens of lambs separated by age, and vessels of milk. The companions beg that they take the cheeses and leave quickly with lambs and kids for the ship, but Odysseus does not obey, because he wanted to see the owner and learn whether he would give them guest-gifts, which, he says, would not be good for the companions. They light a fire, make an offering, eat cheese, and wait. The Cyclops returns with a great bundle of dry wood, which he hurls into the cave with a crash, and they run in fear to the back. He drives the flock inside, leaving the males outside, and closes the entrance with an enormous stone, which twenty-two wagons could not move; he milks ewes and goats and, when he lights the fire, sees the strangers and asks who they are, where they come from, and whether they wander like pirates. His voice and form break the men's hearts, but Odysseus answers: they are Achaeans returning from Troy, blown off course by the winds, subjects of Agamemnon, and they beg, on their knees, for a guest-gift, invoking Zeus Xenios, avenger of suppliants and guests. The Cyclops says he is a fool if he tells him to fear the gods, because the Cyclopes care nothing for Zeus or the gods, since they are much stronger, and that he spares them only if his spirit so commands; and he asks where he left his ship. Odysseus perceives that he is being tested and answers with a stratagem: Poseidon broke his ship against the rocks at the edge of their land, and only he and his companions escaped.
The Cyclops does not answer. He seizes two companions, dashes them against the ground like puppies, and devours them, leaving nothing. Odysseus and the others raise their hands to Zeus, weeping, not knowing what to do. When the Cyclops has finished, he sleeps stretched out among the sheep. Odysseus thinks of drawing his sword and striking him in the chest, but another thought restrains him: they too would die there, because they could not move the stone from the door. In the morning the Cyclops lights the fire, milks, devours two more, and goes out with the flock, replacing the stone like someone closing a quiver. Odysseus stays scheming how to take revenge, waiting for Athena to grant him glory. Beside the pen lies a club of green olive wood that the Cyclops cut to dry, as large as the mast of a cargo ship. Odysseus cuts off a fathom of it, the companions smooth it, he sharpens the tip and hardens it in the fire, and hides it in the dung. They draw lots for who will help him drive it into the Cyclops's eye when sleep comes: the four he himself would choose come up, and he is the fifth.
In the afternoon the Cyclops returns and this time drives the whole flock inside, by suspicion or by some god's order, closes the door, and devours two more. Odysseus approaches with a bowl of dark wine and says he has brought him a libation, so that he will take pity and send him home, but that his fury is intolerable: who among so many men would visit him later if he acts against custom? The Cyclops drinks, loves the wine, asks for more, and asks Odysseus's name, to give him a guest-gift: he says the land of the Cyclopes also yields wine, but this is a piece of ambrosia and nectar. Odysseus gives him three bowls, and when the wine reaches his wits, he says that the Cyclops asked for his famous name and that he will tell it, provided he gives the promised gift: his name is Nobody, which his mother, his father, and his companions call him. The Cyclops replies that he will eat Nobody last, after his companions, and that this will be his guest-gift. He falls backward and sleeps, vomiting wine and pieces of human flesh.
Odysseus thrusts the stake into the ashes until it heats and encourages the companions, so that none of them draws back from fear. When the green stake is about to catch fire, he takes it from the fire and the companions gather around it, and a god breathes courage into them. They set the tip in the Cyclops's eye, and Odysseus, pressing from above, turns the stake as a shipwright bores a ship's timber with an auger, while others pull the strap from below. The eye hisses like an axe that a smith plunges into cold water to temper it. The Cyclops cries out, they draw back, and he pulls out the stake and calls the other Cyclopes. These come from every side and ask Polyphemus why he cries out in the night and wakes them: whether someone is stealing his flock, or killing him by guile or by force. Polyphemus answers from inside the cave that Nobody is killing him by guile, and not by force. The Cyclopes reply that if no one is forcing him, being alone, the affliction comes from Zeus and cannot be avoided, and that he should pray to Poseidon, his father, and they go away. Odysseus laughs inwardly, because the name and his faultless cunning had deceived them.
Polyphemus, groaning with pain, gropes his way to the stone, removes it from the door, and sits down in front of it with his arms outstretched, to seize whoever tries to leave with the sheep; he thinks Odysseus would be too foolish to try. Odysseus, in mortal danger, thinks about the best way to save himself and his companions, and decides: he silently ties the fattest rams, with thick fleece, three by three, with the willow withes on which the Cyclops slept; the ram in the middle carries a man, and the two on either side protect him. He himself, for the finest ram of the flock, grips the wool of its belly and holds on there, patiently. In the morning the males go out to pasture and the females, unmilked, bleat; the owner, in pain, feels the backs of the animals as they stand and does not notice the men tied beneath their bellies. Odysseus's ram goes out last, heavy with fleece and with the man it carries. Polyphemus speaks to it: he asks why it goes out last, when it is usually the first; he supposes it grieves for the loss of its master's eye, which a wicked man blinded with miserable companions, subduing his wits with wine, Nobody, whom he does not believe has escaped; and he says that if the ram could speak and tell where Nobody hides, he would dash his brains against the ground and ease his heart of its woes. He sends it out. Far from the cave, Odysseus unties himself and sets his companions free, and they drive the sheep to the ship. The companions rejoice to see them, but weep for the dead; Odysseus forbids them with signs of the eyebrows and orders them to load the flock.
When they are within shouting distance, Odysseus taunts the Cyclops: he says he should not have devoured the companions of a man who was not weak, that his deeds have caught up with him, because he did not fear to eat guests in his own house, and so Zeus and the other gods punished him. Polyphemus, even more enraged, tears off the summit of a mountain and hurls it; the rock falls before the prow, and the wave pushes the ship back to land. Odysseus pushes it away with a pole and orders the companions to row. When they are twice as far away, he wants to speak again, and the companions restrain him, saying the Cyclops nearly killed them with the rock, and that if he hears a voice he will hurl the next one and break their heads and the ship. But they do not persuade his spirit, and he shouts, with resentment: if any mortal asks Polyphemus about the blinded eye, let him say it was Odysseus, sacker of cities, son of Laertes, who has his home in Ithaca. Polyphemus groans and says the ancient prophecy has overtaken him: the seer Telemus, son of Eurymus, told him he would lose his sight at the hands of Odysseus, but he expected a man great and handsome, of great strength, and the one who blinded him was a small, insignificant, and weak man, after subduing him with wine. He calls Odysseus back to give him guest-gifts and to ask Poseidon, his father, for an escort, and says that only his father can heal him. Odysseus replies that he wishes he could take away his soul and life and send him to the house of Hades, as surely as the earth-shaker will not heal his eye.
Polyphemus raises his hands to the sky and prays to Poseidon: if he is truly his son, may Odysseus never reach home; but if it is fated that he see his people again and reach his well-built house and his native land, let him come late and badly, having lost all his companions, on another man's ship, and find troubles in his house. Poseidon hears him. Polyphemus hurls another stone, even larger, which falls behind the stern, and the wave pushes the ship toward the island. There they find the other ships and the companions, who were waiting in tears. They divide the sheep, and the companions give Odysseus the ram beyond his share; he sacrifices it to Zeus, burning the thigh pieces, but Zeus does not accept the rite and plans how all the ships and companions will be lost. They feast until sunset, sleep on the beach, and at dawn Odysseus orders them to board, and they set sail, relieved to have escaped death and grieving for the companions lost.
Analysis
This is the book in which Odysseus tells against himself. He says he sacked Ismarus and that the companions did not obey when he ordered them to flee; he says he stayed in the cave because he wanted to see the owner and receive gifts, and that obeying "would have been far more advantageous"; he says he shouted his own name to the Cyclops, despite the companions' entreaties. The hero who narrates is also the one who accuses himself, and the poem makes the Phaeacians hear it. Each of these decisions costs companions: six in the cave, and Polyphemus's curse asks for the loss of all of them.
The book is a trial of hospitality turned inside out. In the previous book, Alcinous gave escort, banquet, and gifts to a guest who did not even have a name; here the Cyclops devours guests and answers the request for a gift with a macabre "gift." The name is the other key: the man who began by saying "I am Odysseus" becomes "Nobody" to survive, and becomes Odysseus again so that he will be remembered, and it is this second gesture that gives Polyphemus someone to curse. Zeus, invoked as avenger of guests, does not accept his sacrifice at the end; the text does not explain why.
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