Homer's Odyssey: A CommentarySnider, Denton Jaques
Philosophy
Homer's Odyssey: A Commentary
Snider, Denton Jaques
Epic poetry, Greek -- History and criticism; Homer. Odyssey; Odysseus, King of Ithaca (Mythological character) -- In literature
Now we catch the entire sweep of this particular Cyclops. He has shown
himself as the representative of three mighty negations: of civilized
life, of religious life, and of human life. He destroys man, feeds on
him; so negation, war, revolution, must do in the end. The horrid
phantasm is the true image of the destroyer of the race. Nor does he
belong to the old Greek world and to the Trojan time only; he is among
us, and he can be translated into modern terms quite familiar.
Polyphemus is an anarchist, an atheist, and a cannibal; the ancient
poet wraps the three together in one mighty monstrosity. In the morning
the Cyclops devoured two more companions for his breakfast, then drove
his flocks afield, leaving the rest of the strangers shut up in the
cave with the big stone in the opening.
During the day the "man of many shifts" has an opportunity for
reflection in that dark recess. He dares not kill the giant outright,
"with my sharp sword stubbing him where the midriff holds the liver,"
for how could they then get out? No, the man of nature must be saved
and utilized; with all his might he is to be overborne by the man of
intelligence, and made to remove the big stone.
2. The plan of Ulysses with its successful execution is the subject of
the next phase of the conflict. By this plan three things must be done
in order to counteract the giant and to negative his power. He must be
deprived of physical vision, which becomes the more easily possible
from the fact that he has but one eye; if he had two eyes like the
ordinary man, he could still see though one be put out. That this
purpose be accomplished, he must somehow be shorn of his physical
strength; finally any resistance which might come from the rest of the
Cyclops outside must be rendered nugatory. Such are the three chief
points of the impending problem, which Ulysses has to meet and does
meet with astonishing skill and foresight; the Cyclops is blinded, is
made helpless by drink, and is befooled by a pun.
Ulysses burns out the eye of the monster with the charred end of a
stick of olive wood, which he prepares beforehand; huge Round-eye (the
meaning of the word _Cyclops_) has no eye now. Ulysses by means of that
miraculous wine, product of culture, makes the giant drunk, who thus
loses his physical superiority. The Ithacan evidently knew, as well as
the American, the power of fire-water over the wild man; that the wine
had some strength, is shown by the fact that one cup of it had to be
diluted with twenty measures of water, when taken by ordinary mortals.
Not without significance does the exhilarated Cyclops laud this
civilized wine in contrast to that of the wild grapes of his own land.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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