The Odyssey Polyphemus Quotes

lawless brutes, who trust so to the everlasting gods
they never plant with their own hands or plow the soil.
Unsown, unplowed, the earth teems with all they need,
wheat, barley and vines, swelled by the rains of Zeus
to yield a big full-bodied wine from clustered grapes.
They have no meeting place for council, no laws either,
no, up on the mountain peaks they live in arching caverns –
each a law to himself, ruling his wives and children,
not a care in the world for any neighbor.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 120-128. This passage introduces the reader to the Cyclops and builds them up to be lawless monsters. Heavily dependant on Zeus and the gods for food and daily necessities, they don’t work, and have no rules or any form of government. The reader is being prepared here for the most famous Cyclops, the man-eating Polyphemus.

For the Cyclops have no ships with crimson prows,
no shipwrights there to build them good trim craft
that could sail them out to foreign ports of call
as most men risk the seas to trade with other men.
Such artisans would have made this island too
a decent place to live in.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 138-143. Odysseus contrasts the Cyclops to the Phaeacians, a nation of master seafarers. Unlike the people of Phaeacia, the Cyclops have no ships or skilled shipbuilders which would allow them to sail to foreign lands to trade with other people. Odysseus will shortly learn how vastly different the Cylops are to humans when he encounters the cannibalistic Polyphemus.

A grim loner, dead set in his own lawless ways.
Here was a piece of work, by god, a monster
built like no mortal who ever supped on bread,
no, like a shaggy peak, I’d say – a man-mountain
rearing head and shoulders over the world.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 210-214. Odysseus gives us a description of Polyphemus, as he spies the cavern of the one-eyed giant along the shore of the Cyclops’ island, with flocks of sheep and goats stalled there. A metaphor compares the Cyclops to a shaggy mountain. The passage portrays that he is huge and hairy, savage and and lives in solitude. He is also a monster and is lawless, foreshadowing the terrible events that are about to happen.

From the start my comrades pressed me, pleading hard,
"Let’s make away with the cheeses, then come back –
hurry, drive the lambs and kids from the pens
to our swift ship, put out to sea at once!"
But I would not give way –
and how much better it would have been –
not till I saw him, saw what gifts he’d give.
But he proved no lovely sight to my companions.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 252-259. When Odysseus and his men exlore Polyphemus’ den, they discover a treasure trove of food. The men want to make off with the cheeses, lambs and young goats and sail away quickly before the Cyclops returns. But Odysseus becomes greedy and decides they should wait to see what gifts the Cyclops will give them. The last line that Polyphemus "proved no lovely sight to my companions" foreshadows how horribly the Cyclops will treat Odysseus and his men. Odysseus’ greed for gifts ends up placing his crew in mortal danger.

"Strangers!" he thundered out, "now who are you?
Where did you sail from, over the running sea-lanes?
Out on a trading spree or roving the waves like pirates,
sea-wolves raiding at will, who risk their lives
to plunder other men?"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 284-288. Polyphemus confronts Odysseus and his men over invading his cave and stealing his food. In a simile he compares them to pirates roving the seas and bent on plunder. He warns that they are risking their lives taking what belongs to him. This is foreshadowing that some of them will pay for this with their lives.

"Stranger," he grumbled back from his brutal heart,
"you must be a fool, stranger, or come from nowhere,
telling me to fear the gods or avoid their wrath!
We Cyclops never blink at Zeus and Zeus’s shield
of storm and thunder, or any other blessed god –
we’ve got more force by far."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 306-311. When Odysseus suggests to Polyphemus that mistreating strangers and guests will incur the wrath of Zeus, the Cyclops is unimpressed. Branding the Greek hero a fool, he says that the Cyclops don’t fear the gods and are stronger than them.

"But tell me, where did you moor your sturdy ship
when you arrived? Up the coast or close in?
I’d just like to know."
So he laid his trap
but he never caught me, no, wise to the world
I shot back in my crafty way, "My ship?
Poseidon god of the earthquake smashed my ship,
he drove it against the rocks at your island’s far cape,
he dashed it against a cliff as the winds rode us in.
I and the men you see escaped a sudden death."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 314-322. When Polyphemus attempts to be clever with Odysseus, trying to find out where he moored his ship, Olysseus is one step ahead. Instead of falling for the trap, Odysseus lies and says that his ship was smashed by Poseidon. The cunning Odysseus realizes that Polyphemus probably intends to destroy his ship.

Not a word in reply to that, the ruthless brute.
Lurching up, he lunged out with his hands toward my men
and snatching two at once, rapping them on the ground
he knocked them dead like pups –
their brains gushed out all over, soaked the floor –
and ripping them limb from limb to fix his meal
he bolted them down like a mountain-lion, left no scrap,
devoured entrails, flesh and bones, marrow and all!

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 323-330. Odysseus describes in horrific and graphic detail how Polyphemus kills two of his men and eats them. This is the Cyclops’ swift and brutal justice for those caught stealing his food. In two different similes, Polyphemus’ victims are compared to defenseless puppies as they are killed and the Cyclops to a mountain lion as he feeds on them.

he left me there, the heart inside me brooding on revenge:
how could I pay him back? would Athena give me glory?
Here was the plan that struck my mind as best…
the Cyclops’ great club: there it lay by the pens,
olivewood, full of sap. He’d lopped it off to brandish
once it dried. Looking it over, we judged it big enough
to be the mast of a pitch-black ship with her twenty oars,
a freighter broad in the beam that plows through miles of sea –
so long, so thick it bulked before our eyes.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 354-362. The Cyclops all use huge clubs for weapons and Odysseus sees the Polyphemus’ one lying in his cave. An epic simile describes it as looking big enough to be the mast of an enormous ship. A plan forms in the Greek hero’s mind. He cuts off a length of the club and orders his men to plane it into a sharp stake and char it in a fire. This will be used to blind Polyphemus.

"Here, Cyclops, try this wine – to top off
the banquet of human flesh you’ve bolted down!
Judge for yourself what stock our ship had stored.
I brought it here to make you a fine libation,
hoping you would pity me, Cyclops, send me home,
but your rages are insufferable. You barbarian –
how can any man on earth come visit you after this?
What you’ve done outrages all that’s right!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 388-395. Cunning Odysseus sets about getting Polyphemus drunk, so that he and his crew can attack him. He offers him a wooden bowl filled to the brim with full-bodied wine.

"More" –
he demanded a second bowl – "a hearty helping!
And tell me your name now, quickly,
so I can hand my guest a gift to warm his heart.
Our soil yields the Cyclops powerful, full-bodied wine
and the rains from Zeus build its strength. But this,
this is nectar, ambrosia – this flows from heaven!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 397-403. After eating six of Odysseus’ men and washing them down with a bowl of full-bodied wine, gluttonous Polyphemus is greedy for more of Odysseus’ wine. He asks Odysseus his name, promising him a "gift to warm his heart" if he tells him. Odysseus obliges the Cyclops by pouring him two more bowlfuls of wine.

"So, you ask me the name I’m known by, Cyclops?
I will tell you. But you must give me a guest-gift
as you’ve promised. Nobody – that’s my name. Nobody –
so my mother and father call me, all my friends."
But he boomed back at me from his ruthless heart,
"Nobody? I’ll eat Nobody last of all his friends –
I’ll eat the others first! That’s my gift to you!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 408-414. Odysseus tells Cyclops that his name is "Nobody." This is an example of Odysseus’ characteristic cunning and trickery, probably the most striking example in The Odyssey. The name forms part of a clever plan that Odysseus uses to escape from the Cyclops’ cave. It is also an example of verbal irony because Odysseus is King of Ithaca and not a nobody.

With that
he toppled over, sprawled full-length, flat on his back
and lay there, his massive neck slumping to one side,
and sleep that conquers all overwhelmed him now
as wine came spurting, flooding up from his gullet
with chunks of human flesh – he vomited, blind drunk.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 414-417. After drinking the strong wine given him by Odysseus, Polyphemus falls down drunk and vomits up the pieces of the bodies of the men he has eaten. It is a horrifying and revolting scene. In this passage sleep is personified, as it "conquers" the Cyclops.

I drove my weight on it from above and bored it home
as a shipwright bores his beam with a shipwright’s drill
that men below, whipping the strap back and forth, whirl
and the drill keeps twisting faster, never stopping –
So we seized our stake with its fiery tip
and bored it round and round in the giant’s eye.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 429-434. We get a descriptive account of how Odysseus defeats Polyphemus by stabbing the Cyclops’ in the eye with a burning stake. An epic simile compares the action to that of a shipwright using a drill.

its crackling roots blazed
and hissed –
as a blacksmith plunges a glowing ax or adze
in an ice-cold bath and the metal screeches steam
and its temper hardens – that’s the iron’s strength –
so the eye of the Cyclops sizzled round that stake!
He loosed a hideous roar, the rock walls echoed round
and we scuttled back in terror.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 436-443. Odysseus’ men drive a red-hot stake into the Cyclops’ eye. An epic simile compares the sizzling sound made to when a blacksmith plungs a red-hot axe or cutting blade into ice-cold water.

"Nobody’s killing me now by fraud and not by force!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, line 455. The wounded Polyphemus, eye gouged out by Odysseus and his companions, causes a racket on the island as he cries that "Nobody" is killing him. When the other Cyclops hear that, they take it literally. Instead of coming to his aid, they just go away laughing. Odysseus’ clever ruse to confide his name to Polyphemus as "Nobody" has worked. Cunning is one of Odysseus’ greatest strengths and his main heroic trait, it serves him very well throughout his difficult and dangerous voyage home.

"Dear old ram, why last of the flock to quit the cave?
In the good old days you’d never lag behind the rest
…Sick at heart for your master’s eye
that coward gouged out with his wicked crew? –
only after he’d stunned my wits with wine –
that, that Nobody…
who’s not escaped his death, I swear, not yet.
Oh if only you thought like me, had words like me
to tell me where that scoundrel is cringing from my rage!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 498-499, 505-511. We hear ironic words from the blinded Polyphemus as he speaks to the leader of his flock. He thinks the ram is lagging behind the rest today, because he is sickened over his master’s injuries at the hands of Odysseus. He doesn’t know that crafty Odysseus is clinging to the underneath of the ram making his escape.

"So, Cyclops, no weak coward it was whose crew
you bent to devour there in your vaulted cave –
you with your brute force! Your filthy crimes
came down on your own head, you shameless cannibal,
daring to eat your guests in your own house –
so Zeus and the other gods have paid you back."
That made the rage of the monster boil over.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 531-537. Odysseus just cannot keep his pride and ego under control. After blinding and outsmarting Polyphemus, he is now safely offshore in his boat. But he shouts back and taunts Polyphemus, telling him that for eating his guests, Polyphemus has been dealt divine justice by Zeus. Using a metaphor in a verb, Homer likens the anger of the Cyclops to boiling liquid spilling over.

"So headstrong – why? Why rile the beast again?"
"That rock he flung in the sea just now, hurling our ship
to shore once more – we thought we’d die on the spot!"
"If he’d caught a sound from one of us, just a moan,
he would have crushed our heads and ship timbers
with one heave of another flashing, jagged rock!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 550-555. Odysseus’ men are none too happy that their leader has allowed pride get the better of him and provoked the Cyclops with taunts. As a result Polyphemus hurls a huge rock at their ship and creates a wave driving it back to shore.

"Cyclops –
if any man on the face of the earth should ask you
who blinded you, shamed you so – say Odysseus,
raider of cities, he gouged out your eye,
Laertes’ son who makes his home in Ithaca!

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 560-562. Having outsmarted Polyphemus, Odysseus is making his escape in the ship with his men while the giant Cyclops hurls boulders at them. But excessive pride gets the better of Odysseus and he cannot help but shout back his name to Polyphemus. This fatal lapse in self-control by Odysseus will lead to epic misfortunates for Odysseus and his crew. The Greek hero’s hubris is repaid by Polyphemus who calls on his father Poseidon to avenge him. From that day Odysseus has nothing but ill luck and goes on to lose all his men. It will be ten years before he alone makes it home to his family in Ithaca, because he hurt the son of Poseidon.

"Hear me –
Poseidon, god of the sea-blue mane who rocks the earth!
If I really am your son and you claim to be my father –
come, grant that Odysseus, raider of cities,
Laertes’ son who makes his home in Ithaca,
never reaches home. Or if he’s fated to see
his people once again and reach his well-built house
and his own native country, let him come home late
and come a broken man – all shipmates lost,
alone in a stranger’s ship –
and let him find a world of pain at home!"
So he prayed
and the god of the sea-blue mane, Poseidon, heard his prayer.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 585-596. Polyphemus prays to his father Poseidon for justice after Odysseus blinds him. His powwerful prayer sets up Odysseus’ fate of suffering for many more years to come. The powerful god of the sea, in revenge for wounding his son, curses Odysseus to endure an additional ten years at sea before he finally returns to his homeland.

"A sweet smooth journey home, renowned Odysseus,
that is what you seek
but a god will make it hard for you – I know –
you will never escape the one who shakes the earth,
quaking with anger at you still, still enraged
because you blinded the Cyclops, his dear son."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 11, lines 111-116. Prophet Tiresias warns Odysseus that Poseidon will make his journey home to Ithaca difficult, because he blinded the god’s son Polyphemus. His prophecy foreshadows the misfortunes and pain that Odysseus has yet to face.

"I never had doubts myself, no, I knew down deep
that you would return at last, with all your shipmates lost.
I could not bring myself to fight my Father’s brother,
Poseidon, quaking with anger at you, still enraged
because you blinded the Cyclops, his dear son."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 13, lines 386-390. Athena explains to Odysseus why she did not help him sooner during his travels after Troy. She was fearful of inciting her father’s brother Poseidon, when he flew into a rage after Odysseus blinded his son Polyphemus.
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