User:Paul August/Polyphemus

Polyphemus

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• Look at Lucian VII: pp. 178 ff.

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Ancient sources (Expanded version)

Philoxenus of Cythera

Philoxenus of Cythera (c. 435/4 – 380/79 BC) was a poet of ancient Greece, who wrote more than three centuries after the Odyssey is thought to have been composed. Philoxenus took up the myth of Polyphemus in his poem Cyclops or Galatea. He composed the poem to be performed in a wild and ecstatic song-and-dance form — the dithyramb. The poem has not survived intact, but in fragments. Philoxenus' story occurs well before the one-eyed monster was blinded by Odysseus. Philoxenus was perhaps the first to provide a female love interest for the Cyclops. The object of Polyphemus’ romantic desire is a beautiful sea nymph named Galatea. Philoxenus’ Polyphemus is not a cave dwelling, monstrous brute, as in the Odyssey, but instead he is a bit like Odysseus himself in his vision of the world: He has weaknesses, he is adept at literary criticism, and he understands people.

The date of composition for Philoxenus' Cyclops is not precisely known, but it must be prior to 388 BC, when Aristophanes parodied it in his comedy Plutus (Wealth); and probably after 406 BC, when Dionysius I became tyrant of Syracuse — Philoxenus served as his court poet. Aristophanes' parody suggests that there had been a recent performance in Athens of Philoxenus' Cyclops.

Philoxenus lived at the court of Dionysius I, in Syracuse. According to ancient commentators, either because of his frankness regarding Dionysius' poetry, or because of a conflict with the tyrant over a female aulos player named Galatea, Philoxenus was said to have been imprisoned in the quarries and there written his Cyclops, a dithyramb about the lovesick Cyclops and the nymph Galatea; in the manner of a Roman à clef, the characters in his dithyramb, Polyphemus, Odysseus and Galatea, were meant to represent Dionysius, Philoxenus, and the aulos-player.

Philoxenus had his Polyphemus play the cithara, a professional lyre requiring great skill. The Cyclops playing such a sophisticated and fashionable instrument would have been quite a surprising juxtaposition for Philoxenus' audience, and perhaps signaled a competition between two genres of performance — the nome (a primitive music form of a poem set to music) and the dithyramb. So the character of the Cyclops, in this interpretation, would not represent Dionysius the tyrant of Sicily, but perhaps instead the cithara-playing poet Timotheus.

The romantic element, originated by Philoxenus, was revived by Hellenistic poets that were to follow, including: Theocritus, Callimachus, Hermesianax, and Bion of Smyrna.

Philoxenus' Cyclops is also referred to in Aristotle’s Poetics. Aristotle discusses representations of people in tragedy and comedy (“tragedy differs from comedy. The latter sets out to represent people as worse than they are to-day, the former as better”). Before making this point, he has indicated that as in comedy, it is the same in dithyrambic poetry, and cites as examples the Cyclops of both Timotheus and Philoxenus.

Aristophanes

The text of Aristophanes’ last extant play Plutus (Wealth) has survived, but with almost all of its choral odes missing, what remains for the chorus shows Aristophanes (as he does to some extent in all his plays) parodying a contemporary literary work — in this case Philoxenus’ dithyramb Cyclops. With this parody Aristophanes, while teasing literary aspects of Philoxenus' dithyramb, is at the same time commenting on musical developments occurring in the fourth century BC, developing themes that run through the whole play. It also contains lines and phrases taken directly from Philoxenus’ Cyclops.

The slave Cario, tells the chorus that his master has brought home with him the god Wealth, and because of this they will all now be rich. The chorus wants to dance for joy. So Cario begins a different kind of performance, parodying Philoxenus' dithyramb. As a solo performer leading a chorus that sings and dances, Cario recreates the form of a dithyramb being performed. He first casts himself in the role of Polyphemus and the chorus as his flock of sheep and goats:

And now I wish—threttanello!—to imitate the Cyclops and, swinging my feet to and fro like this, to lead you in the dance. But come on, children, shout and shout again the songs of bleating sheep and smelly goats and follow with your cocks skinned—for you’re going to eat the goat’s breakfast!

Cario vocally imitates the sound of a lyre ("threttanello") which is thought to be a reference to Philoxenus having Polyphemus play the lyre, and "to eat the goat’s breakfast" is an obscene joke referencing self-administered fellatio.

The chorus, however, doesn’t want to play sheep and goats, they'd rather be Odysseus and his men, and threaten to blind Cario (as the drunken Cyclops) with a wooden stake:

But we in turn will try—threttanello!—while we bleat to catch you as the Cyclops, still hungry, holding a sack of damp wild greens, and hung over to boot! Then while you happen to take a nap while leading your sheep, we’ll pick up a great half-burnt stake and blind you!

Philoxenus continues to be quoted in this scene from Aristophanes, and the chorus responds to Cario’s obscene joke with their own comic dscription of a drunken Cyclops passing out while leading his sheep.

With the patronizing and bossy tone of Cario, and the rebellion of the chorus, Aristophanes establishes a conflict between the chorus and an individual performer, which suggests that, for some at least, perhaps including Aristophanes, in contemporary theater, the soloist was threatening to become overly dominant.

Some ancient sources claimed that Philoxenus wrote his dithyramb as an allegory regarding the tyrant Dionysius and a woman named Galatea — in whom both the tyrant and the poet had a romantic interest. And it is thought that Aristophanes makes use of this love triangle in his parody, in order to score satiric points against a contemporary Athenian.

Aristophanes' parody of Cyclops makes a point of having the characters repeatedly use the word 'imitate' to describe the performers task, which raises questions regarding the mimetic aspect of performance, and the relationship between art and reality. The parody seems to draw attention to the artificiality of performance, even while, ironically, Aristophanes has the characters claim spontaneity for their performance. This suggest that such philosophical ideas about art were being discussed in Athens in 388 BC when the play was performed.

Aristophanes delivers a satiric rebuttal to a dithyramb that has wandered into territory more properly the domain of drama.

Theocritus

Theocritus, born c. 300 BC, is credited with creating the genre of pastoral poetry. His works are titled Idylls. His Idyll 6, and Idyll 11 contain a story of Polyphemus' love for Galatea.

Theocritus’ Cyclops derives from Homer, though the differences are notable, for example Odysseus does not appear in Theocritus’ story. Also Homer’s Cyclops is beastly and wicked, while Theocritus’ is absurd, lovesick, and comic. A shared aspect is that both Homer and Theocritus each have a narrator: Odysseus and Polyphemus, respectively. In Theocritus's Idyll 11, Polyphemus has discovered that music will heal lovesickness, and so he plays the panpipes, and sings a comic and sympathetic tale of his woes and of how he is beleaguered and neglected. Polyphemus loves the sea nymph Galatea, but she rejects him.

Polyphemus describes himself:

I know, beautiful maiden, why it is you shun me thus.
It is because from one ear to the other, right across
The whole width of my forehead, one long shaggy eyebrow runs,
With but one eye beneath; and broad is the nose above my lip.

He boasts of his musical talent:

I am skilled in piping as no other Cyclops here…

He shares an erotic fantasy:

Gladly would I suffer you to singe my very soul,
And this one eye of mine, the dearest treasure I posses.
Ah me, would that my mother at my birth had given me gills,
That so I might have dived down to your side and kissed your hand.
If your lips you would not let me…

Bion

A fragment of a lost idyll by Bion of Smyrna (fl c. 100 BC) also portrays Polyphemus declaring his undying love for Galatea. Referring back to this, an elegy on Bion's death that was once attributed to Moschus takes the theme further in a piece of hyperbole. Where Polyphemus had failed, the poet declares, Bion's greater artistry had won Galatea's heart, drawing her from the sea to tend his herds.

Propertius

Although Polyphemus' love was unrequited in the previously described accounts, Polyphemus’ courtship had a more successful outcome apparently, in some later accounts. In the course of a 1st-century BC love elegy on the power of music, the Latin poet Propertius mentions as one example that "Even Galatea, it’s true, below wild Etna, wheeled her brine-wet horses, Polyphemus, to your songs." The division of contrary elements, in other words, is brought into harmony.

Ovid

17th Century Etching by Antonio Tempesta showing the Cyclops Polyphemus playing the panpipes, with Galatea and Acis lying together hidden behind a rock

The Roman poet Ovid (43 BC – 17/18 AD) tells the story of Polyphemus and his love for Galatea in his poem Metamorphoses. Ovid's treatment of the story is particularly reliant on Theocritus’ Idylls 11 and 6.

Polyphemus is not the cannibalistic monster of Homer and Virgil who terrorized Odysseus and Aeneas. Instead Polyphemus is lovesick for the sea nymph Galatea. The image of an enormous, hulking monster attempting to play the tender shepherd singing love songs is a source of humor in the Metamorphoses.

Galatea, however, despises the Cyclops — she loves and pursues a young man named Acis. She declares:

While I pursued him with a constant love,
the Cyclops followed me as constantly.
And, should you ask me, I could not declare
whether my hatred of him, or my love
of Acis was the stronger.—They were equal.

She describes Polyphemus:

He is filled
with passion for me. He burns hot for me,
forgetful of his cattle and his caves.

Galatea continues:

Now, Polyphemus, wretched Cyclops, you
are careful of appearance, and you try
the art of pleasing. You have even combed
your stiffened hair with rakes: it pleases you
to trim your shaggy beard...

Galatea then tells how Polyphemus played his shepherd's panpipes and sang a love song to her, which she and Acis, lying together hidden by a rock, overheard. In his song, Polyphemus admires Galatea’s beauty, scolds her for not loving him in return, offers her gifts that include apples and two bear cubs, and points out what he considers his best feature — the single eye that is, he boasts, the size of a great shield. But when Polyphemus discovers Galatea and Acis lying together, he becomes enraged with jealousy. Galatea, terrified, dives into the ocean. The Cyclops wrenches off a piece of the mountain and crushes Acis with it. Galatea then returns and changes her dead lover into the spirit of the Sicilian river Acis.

It was Ovid's account which was to have the greatest impact in later ages.

First-century AD art

Polyphemus receives a love-letter from Galatea, a 1st-century AD fresco from Pompeii

That the story sometimes had a more successful outcome for Polyphemus is also attested in the arts. In one of the murals rescued from the site of Pompeii, Polyphemus is pictured seated on a rock with a cithara (rather than a syrinx) by his side, holding out a hand to receive a love letter from Galatea, which is carried by a winged Cupid riding on a dolphin.

In another fresco, also dating from the 1st century AD, the two stand locked in a naked embrace (see below). From their union came the ancestors of various wild and war-like races. According to some accounts, the Celts (Galati in Latin, Γάλλοi in Greek) were descended from their son Galatos. Other sources credit them with three children, Celtus, Illyrius and Galas, from whom descend the Celts, the Illyrians and the Gauls respectively.

Lucian

Offspring of Polyphemus and Galatea

There are indications that Polyphemus’ courtship also had a more successful outcome in one of the dialogues of Lucian of Samosata, where one of Galatea's sisters, Doris, spitefully congratulates her on her love conquest and she defends Polyphemus. From the conversation, one understands that Doris is chiefly jealous that her sister has a lover. Galatea admits that she does not love Polyphemus but is pleased to have been chosen by him in preference to all her companions.

Nonnus

That their conjunction was fruitful is also implied in a later Greek epic from the turn of the 5th century AD. In the course of his Dionysiaca, Nonnus gives an account of the wedding of Poseidon and Beroe, at which the Nereid "Galatea twangled a marriage dance and restlessly twirled in capering step, and she sang the marriage verses, for she had learnt well how to sing, being taught by Polyphemos with a shepherd’s syrinx."

Polyphemus' transformation from Homer to Ovid

Polyphemus' story, as derived from Homer’s Odyssey, has gone through several transformations. The Polyphemus of Homer and Virgil, is a gigantic mountain of a monster, whereas in Euripides’ satyr play Cyclops, and in Philoxenus' dithyramb, the character, needing to be played by an actor, became human-sized, and, because of the conventions of the genre, the same was true for the pastoral poems of Theocritus; this reduction in size tended to humanize Polyphemus.

Euripides, Philoxenus and Theocritus transformed Polyphemus by means of comedic eroticism. Polyphemus is transformed by Euripides from the Homeric bachelor into an intoxicated lover of young boys, and by Philoxenus and Theocritus, into the incongruous lover of a sea nymph.

Polyphemus also undergoes a musical transformation. The unmusical Homeric Cyclops, in Euripides Cyclops sings, though not well: “See— here he comes, out of his rocky dwelling, drunk singing an ugly noise, howling all over the place and out of tune.” However in Theocritus’s pastoral poetry, Polyphemus both sings and plays the pipes, boasting: “I can pipe like none of the Cyclopes around here!”.

Ovid makes use of each of these factors of size, eroticism and musicality in his poem Metamorphosis. On the one hand, he appropriates the lovesick Cyclops of Philoxenus and Theocritus, but adds a love-triangle of his own: Polyphemus, Galatea and Acis. At the same time Ovid, restores the Homeric Polyphemus great size.

Sources

Ancient

Ovid

Metamorphoses

13.778–788

A wedge-formed hill projects far in the sea

and either side there flow the salty waves. To this the giant savage climbed and sat upon the highest point. The wooly flock, no longer guided by him, followed after. There, after he had laid his pine tree down, which served him for a staff, although so tall it seemed best fitted for a ship's high mast, he played his shepherd pipes—in them I saw a hundred reeds. The very mountains felt the pipings of that shepherd, and the waves beneath him shook respondent to each note. All this time I was hidden by a rock, reclining on the bosom of my own dear Acis; and, although afar, I heard such words as these, which I can not forget:—}}

Modern

Creese

p. 562

In the penultimate episode of Metamorphoses 13 (719-897), Ovid presents his reader with the image of a Cyclops in love; It is not a pretty sight, nor is there a happy ending.

The story of Polyphemus had already undergone multiple literary transformations by the time Ovid appropriated it.² ... It has been suggested, in fact, that by the time Euripides presented Polyphemus on stage in his satyr play Cyclops (c. 408), the story had come [cont.]

p. 563

to be regarded as 'primarily comic'.³ That this should have been the case even before the composition of Philoxenus' dithyramb Cyclops or Galatea (c. 400),⁴ in which, possibly for the first time,⁵ Polyphemus was given a female love object, only serves to show what a wealth of possibility the myth already contained in its original Homeric version.

The Homeric Cyclops was gigantic ... Virgil, too ... Both the performance genres (drama, dithyramb) on the one hand, and pastoral poetry on the other, reduce Polyphemus's epic stature, the former because of the limitations of the human actor, the latter because of the particular conventions of the pastoral genre: in Theocritus 11 he is young ... awkward and in love, but not gigantic. The effect in both cases is to humanize the epic monster to a certain degree.

(2.) Eroticism. Euripides created humour out of the image of an intoxicated and aggressively amorous Cyclops, who calls Silenus his 'Ganymede', declares his general preference for boys, styles himself Silenus' ἐρατής, hauls the protesting satyr into his cave (thankfully offstage) to bugger him there (Cyc. 581-9). If Polyphemus' Euripidean transformaion was from the confirmed bachelor to the [cont.]

⁵ Hopkinson (n. 1), 36 thinks that Philoxenus' was 'the first literary treatment of the Cyclops in love'; so does Hordern, 'Cycopea: Philoxenus, Theocritus, Callimachus and Bion', CQ 54 (2004), 285-92, at 285. Hunter (n. 2), 216 cites Silenus' oath to the Cyclops by 'the daughters of Nereus' (of which Galatea was one, in the Homeric and Hesiodic accounts: Il. 18.45, Theog. 250) at Eur. Cyc. 264 as possible evidence for a pre-existing tradition which linked Polyphemus and Galatea, but regards it as an uncertain question.

p. 564

pederast,⁶ then Philoxenian transformation involved a change of sexual preference.

⁶ There were female Cyclopes in the Homeric version (Od. 9.115), but none lived with Polyphemus.

Fowler

p. 55

It has long been a puzzle what Polyphemus and his fellow Kyklopes have to do with the smiths of the Titanomachy, and as early as Hellanikos (fr. 88) scholars have declared that these are quite different groups; Hellanikos distinguished also the Mycenaean builders as a tribe unto themselves.²¹² But as we have seen the Mycenaean builders are not very different from the heavenly craftsman; the real puzzle is the Odyssean lot. We should probably recognize the free invention of the an epic poet. The one-eyed cannibalistic monster from whom the clever hero escapes is an extremely widespread folktale^213. which Homer or a predecessor has worked into the Odyssey. The link could have been the name. Perhaps 'Kyklopes' is a Greek calque on some foreign word—an all-too-easy hypothesis, of course—but if it is, the name, once invented, would instantly suggest the appearance (already in Hesiod, Th. 143). The appearance once established,²¹⁴ linking the Kyklopes with the one-eyed ogre of folktale would be easy.

²¹³ See Mondi, 'Cyclopes' and Bremmer, 'Odysseus versus the Cyclops' for bibliography, and Calame, The Craft of Poetic Speech 140-3. A one-eyed monster figures in Sumerian art, but we do not know what story might have been attached to it. See West, EFH 424; M. Knox, JHS 99 (1979) 164 f.

²¹⁴ The appearance would follow on the name rather than vice-versa, which might explain why early Greek art is uncertain about the appearance of these monsters; they do not always have but one eye. Homer himself is strangely silent about it; it becomes clear only when Odysseus hatches his plot.

Frazer

p. 343 on 22.7

22. 7. Homer's account of ----- the Cyclops. The story of

p. 344 on 22.7

Ulysses and the Cyclops (Homer, Od. ix. 166-542) is a folk-tale, of which versions are current in many lands. Grimm has collected Servian, Roumanian, Estonian, Finnish, Russian, German, and other verions of the story. See W. Grimm, 'Die Sage von Polyphem', Philolog. und histor. Abhandlungen d. kön. Akad. d. Wissen. zu Berlin, 1857, pp. 1-30. A summary of Grimm's memoir is given by Mr. W. W. Merry in Appemdix II. to his larger edition of the Odyssey, bks. i.-xii. To the versions collected by Grimm may be added a Basque version (Webster, Basque Legends, p. 4 sq.), two Lapp versions (Poestion, Lappländische Märchen, Nos. 29, 35, pp. 122 sqq. 152 sqq.), a Lithuanian version (...), a Gascon version (...), a Syrian version (...), and a Celtic version (...) The Servian story, cited by Grimm ... is also given in ...

Glenn 1971 [in folder]

p. 133

In the folktales of many lands the Cyclopes have lived on, long after the extinction of Zeus and the Olympians. In studying this widespread folktale, ...

p. 134

It should become evident that the value of these tales does not hinge on their being independent of Homer, although this is, in fact, the position which will be presented as highly probable.

I

We begin with a brief survey of the geographical scope of the Blinding of the Ogre. In 1857 Wilhelm Grimm presented and analyzed ten versions of the tale (including Homer's) from such widely scattered countries as France, Finland, Arabia, and Turkey.³ In the years that followed, numerous other versions came to light, until in 1904 Hackman was able to collet and publish 221 verions in his Die Polyphemsage in der Volksüberlieferung. Still by far the most complete colletion, this monograph includes approximately twent-five nations extending in a wide arc from Iceland, England, and Portugal to Arabia, Turkey, and Russia. Since 1904 many more versions have been recorded, but unfortunately no new attempt at a complete collection has been made. Frazer, however, has collected thirty-six versions, which serve well "to illustrate the wide diffusion of the tale and the general similarity of the versions."⁴ Further, two important bibliographies have appeared since Hackman's work. Bolte and Polívka have surveyed the period from 1857 to 1918, citing many versions not found in Hackman and expanding the boundaries of the tale to include Ireland and Korea.⁵ Finally, Röhrich recently has done valuable service of providing a bibliography from 1918 to 1962.⁶ In addition to approximately twenty nations already represented, Röhrich gives references to the first known versions from Africa.⁷

³ Grimm 428-62.

⁴ Frazer 405, note 2. The thirty-six versions are found in Frazer 404-55.

⁵ J. Bolte and G. Polívka, Anmerkungen ... (Leipzig 1918) 375-78.

⁵ Röhrich 58-60.

p. 135

Turning to the chronological span of these tales, we find that the vat majority were recorded in the nieteenth century, ...

Clearly the first question posed by these and many more recent versions of the Polyphemus folktale is the precedence: are they derived from Homer or our they independent representatives of a folktale shared by Homer? The latter alternative is supported by a clear majority of scholars;¹² still, since there has been a small but [cont.]

p. 136

steady number of skeptics,¹³ perhaps the question deserves to be considered once again.

Glenn 1978 [in folder]

p. 141

'The Blinding of the Ogre', a widespread folktale, has long fascinated and stimulated man's imagination. By far the earliest known version of the story appears in Book 9 of Homer's Odyssey, but the current scholarly consensus holds that thus tale is earlier than Homer, was borrowed by the poet, and has survived independently in oral tradition down to modern times.¹ In ...

Since no one ... Our starting point will be the middle of the [19th-century] ... In this early period the most important landmark ... is Wilhelm Grimm's essay 'Die Sage von Polyphem', which appeared in 1857.⁴

p. 153

1. See D. L. Page, The Homeric Odyssey (Osford, 1955), pp. 1-20, and J. Glenn, 'The Polyphemus folktale and Homer's Kyklopeia, TAPbA 102 (1971), 133-81.

4. W. Grimm, ...

Grimm

"Die Sage von Polyphem"

Heubeck and Hoekstra [in folder]

p. 19 on lines 105–556

Polyphemus legends were told and retold almost throughout the ancient world; modern scholarship has identified well over two hundred different versions; cf. most recently J Glenn. 'The Polyphemus Folktale and Homer's Kyklopeia', TAPbA cii (1971), 133-85, who gives an extensive bibliography; Germain, Genèse, 55-129 gives the North African parallels. It is of course possible that some of the other versions, which were of course recorded only relatively late are ultimately dependent on Homer; see e.g. ... Most scholars, however, quite rightly reject this view; cf. ... Glenn, loc. cit. Analysis of the folk-tale material shows that the poet was using two originally unconnected stories, the first about a hero blinding a man-eating giant. Consistent features of this story are the hero's use of an animal, usually a sheep, or at least an animal skin, to effect an escape and the giant's attempt to bring the hero back with the help of a magical object. The second story concerns a hero outwitting a monster by giving a false name, usually 'I myself'. The fusion of these two stories is surely the work of the poet himself.

Mondi

p. 17

During the past hundred years, modern scholarship has resolved most of these problems using a methodology not available to its ancient counterpart: the comparative study of folklore. As a result of this work, we can with some confidence understand the Polyphemus tale, as it appears in our Odyssey, as the incorporation of a folktale of a very common type—escape form a blinded ogre—into material from the Greek epic tradition, the nostos of Odysseus.¹ Moreover there is a general consensus that the numerous versions of this tale, attested throughout Europe as well as parts of northern Africa and the Near East, constitute a folk tradition that is independent of the Greek epic tradition, upon which the Odyssey itself has drawn.²

¹ The first major work devoted to the comparative study of the Polyphemus tale was that of Wilhelm Grimm, "DIe Sage von Polyphem," ...

² Grimm 454-55, Hackman 167, Glenn 135-42, and Page 7.

Newlands

p. 76

... Polyphemus, an important figure in the Odyssey also and now in [cont.]

p. 77

Ovid's poem (13.740-899). But he is not the cannibalistic monster who terrified Odysseus and Aeneas; rather. this is the Cyclops temporarily metamorphosed. Traditionally solitary, self-sufficient and brutish, Ovid's Polyphemus has fallen in love with the sea nymph Galatea. This erotic story was popular in Hellenistic poetry, and Ovid draws particularly on Theocritus' Idylls 11 and 6. However while the Hellenistic poet's Cyclops relies on his wealth in sheep and rural produce to lure his girl, Ovid's Cyclops seems to have taken a leaf out of Ars Amatoria and attempts to spruce up his appearance. For instance, he tries to groom his hair but uses a rake instead of a comb, and he shaves with a sickle (765-6), details that remind us of his enormous size. Ovid plays on the comic disparity of the Cyclops' epic bulk and history and his new, lovesick heart. Epic here unites with elegy and pastoral as Polyphemus plays the shepherd lover and, using another amorous strategy, attempts to win over Galatea by a 'love song' (789-869). Mixing comedy and horror, flattery and threat, he praises he beauty, chastises her for spurning him, and offers her rustic gifts such as apples, a conventional token of love (812), and, as a climax, the far less conventional bear cubs (836-7) — which would be of no appeal to a sea nymph, and are destined to grow to epic proportions! He also recommends to her his physical 'assets', including his single eye, which he boasts is as large as a shield. (851-4) — an unfortunate comparison, for in Aeneid 3 the Cyclops' eye is compared to a shield at the moment when Ulysses and his men pierce it and blind him. (Ten. 3.635-7).

The transformative power of love upon people and literary genres has been an Ovidian theme from the vey start of his career. At Am. 1.1.7-12 Ovid reflects upon th chaos Cupid can cause when gods — and poets — abandon their traditional roles and dress for the opposite (7-12) — 'just imagine Venus grabbing Minera's amour', the poet exclaims (7). With Polyphemus Ovid gives a comic spin to this theme while also accommodating it to an epic register — the Cyclops' gigantic size is emphasized, and the story of his passion for Galatea is incorporated into Ovid's version of Aeneas' journey to Italy. Moreover, we see in this story a recurrent pattern of the Metamorphoses: change occurring swiftly at the level of narrative. The mutual love of Galatea and Acis is interrupted by sudden death; the Cyclops reveals his true, monstrous nature by crushing Acis in a jealous rage with an [cont.]

p. 78

enormous boulder torn from the mountainside (870-97). Comedy turns in a heartbeat to tragedy, and the artifice of the pastoral idyll is revealed with the return to epic mode. The concluding metamorphosis of Acis into a river god (885-97) provides another shift in register, an elegiac coda to generically complex narrative.

Hopkinson [in folder]

p. 36

In about 400 CB the Sicilian Philoxenus composed a lyric poem in which he invented an episode set before Odysseus' arrival. He made Polyphemus a lover of the sea-nymph Galatea; Odysseus, too had a role. This poem, now lost (see PMG 815-24), was the first literary treatment of the Cyclops in love. Contradictory accounts were current in antiquity about Philoxenus' inspiration for the poem (PMG 816, 817, 819). However, it was widely believed that he had had an affair with a certain Galatea, mistress of Dionysius tyrant of Syracuse, that he had been punished by imprisonment in stone quarries, and that he had composed his poem as an allegory, Dionysius being represented as the unperceptive Cyclops, Galatea as the sea-nymph of that name, and himself as the wily Odysseus. All this may have been fabrication; but the poem was famous in antiquity, and widely imitated. Several writes of comedies treated the story at roughly the same time, but only a few fragments survive.¹³²

In the third century BC Theocritus composed two hexameter poems inspired by Philoxenus. Idyll 11, framed by an address to Theocritus' doctor friend Ncias, who is perhaps himself in love, states that song is a useful antidote to love, and quotes as illustration the song of Polyphemus. Galatea is the absent adressee, and Odysseus, who is not mentioned by name, is present only through heavy irony and Homeric verbal allusion. Theocritus is a writer of pastoral poetry, and Polyphemus is depicted as a naive rustic who lacks insight; his song is in part clumsy, and the tone wavers between pathos and bathos. Although readers can hardly forget that Polyphemus is [cont.]

p. 37

soon to be a godless cannibal, he utters no threats and uses no violent language: his aim is persuasion. By the end of his song, although Galatea is as unobtainable as ever, he seems to have gained at least a temporary respite from his passion: there are, he claims, other girls who do not reject him (75-9). Another poem, Idyll 6, is a variation on the same theme, Galatea being this time in pursuit of Polyphemus. It is a singing-contest between two herdsmen in which one reproves Polyphemus for being backward in love and the other replies in the character of the Cyclops. He claims he is ignoring Galatea in order to sharpen her desire for him; he has seen his reflection in the sea, and he reckons himself handsome. These poems, Idyll 11 in particular, were well known in antiquity, and both are alluded to by Ovid.¹⁵³

Hunt

p. 9

The Caucasus has an extremely rich folk literature—one that includes myths, legends, ancedotes and proverbs—which is almost unknown among English speakers.

One of the reasons that the Caucasus has such a rich store of folk literature is that the bulk of the languages spoken in the mountainous and countryside regions had no alphabet until the early years of the twentieth century, and so nearly all communication was oral.

... However the collectors of folklore had begun work about forty years before then, throughout the late nineteenth century.

Among the early collectors were ... in Georgia in the 1880s, ... in Ingusheria in the 1870s, ... in Balkaria in the 1880s ...

p. 13

Chapter 7 deals with the rearing of animals, which in the high mountains mostly means sheep or goats. This chapter about shepherds includes some examples of Cyclops legends. There are many variants of the Cyclops legend in the Caucasus, and one of the few common factors in these legends is that the giant (Cyclops) is a shepherd, as he was in The Odyssey.

p. 201

VII Legends About Shepherds, Including Cyclops Legends

This chapter contains two types of legends about shepherds: those without magic elements, and the Cyclops stories that often contain magic elements. The question might arise: why are Cyclops legends included in a chapter on shepherds? The answer is that when the Cyclops legends were studied and their motifs were listed, the cannibal giant was a shepherd in almost all of them.

p. 210

CYCLOPS LEGENDS

In the Caucasus folklore there is a whole constellation of legends and tales that can be classified as being of the Cyclops type. A constellation of stars consists of a loose grouping of stars, of which some are more prominent, others are less so; but it does not contain a supreme central star, as in a planetary system. There is a temptaion to define thr 'Cyclops' constellation of legends as if it were a planetary system that could be grouped around the Homeric tale. However the Homeric tale itself was probably also part of a contemporary constellations of legends, of which all have been lost except the one that Homer recorded. There is no evidence that the Homeric tale was the unique central 'sun' within a planetary type of legendary system: at the time of its recording it was probably just one version among many.

Twenty five versions or variants of the legend from the Caucasus were identified as fitting this definition.However. there were three variants of another interesting legend in which some of the usual Cyclops motifs were inverted, and this legend has also been included.

Homer's Cyclops legend contains the following eighteen motifs:

1. Giant shepherd

2. ...

...

p. 211

4. Hero and his men enter dwelling (as thieves)

5 ...

...

18. Hero and men sail away

pp. 212–213

Table 1. Motifs included in the reference Legend od Homer (*); and the 'Cyclops' legends (a to z) that are listed in Table 2.

p. 214

Table 2. Caucasus versions and variants of the Cyclops legend.

p. 215

TEXTS OF CYCLOPS LEGENDS

44. Yoryuzmek and Sosuruk (Balkar)

p. 218

45. The Story of One-eye (Georgian)

pp. 220–221

Walking behind the flock was a man of huge stature, and with only one eye. ... Here One-eye shut us in, ... he set him on a spit and began roasting him over the fire ... Thus that monster ate up all of out brothers except me and the youngest ... he lay down ... and began snoring, ... we laid [the spit] on the fire ... When the spit [p. 221] had become red hot, we ... thrust it straight into One-eye's eye. ...

... he began to let the ... sheep [out] through between his legs,

p. 222

46. Stories about Giants (vampolozh) (Chechen-Ingush)

p. 225

47 Koloy Kant (Chechen-Ingush)

p. 228

48 Parcho (Chechen)

p. 229

Long long ago there lived a strong man with one eye in his forehead. He was named Parcho.

d'Huy

Polyphemus (Aa. Th. 1137) A phylogenetic reconstruction of a prehistoric tale

Mayor

p. 36

The Cyclops story was assimilated into epic poetry tradition and made famous in Homer's Odyssey.¹⁵

[p. 287]

15. ... Cyclops: Abel 1914 and 1939; Thenius and Vávra 1996, 19-21; ... For a history of interpretations of the Cyclops legend, see Glenn 1978.

Rosen

p. 122

Theocritus's Cyclops has an obvious and explicit intertextual relationship with Homer Odyssey 9, although it is common for scholars to stress the stark contrast between the two portraits—Homer's Cyclops as unremittingly savage and "evil," Theocritus's Cyclops, now an absurd unrequited lover, as poignant, comical and bathetic. ... There are as many divergences, therefore, as points of contact between the two portraits of Cyclops, the most glaring being the fact that Odysseus does not figure directly in either of Theocritus's Idylls. One feature they share is a central narrator (Odysseus in Odyssey 9; Polyphemus in Theocritus 11, and part of Idyll 6) ...

p. 155

We turn here, therefore, to the dithyrambist Philoxenus of Cythera, who composed a poem in the generation after Euripides entitled Cyclops or Galateia. In this work (written before 388, when it was parodied in Aristophanes' Wealth 290–301), Philoxenus evidently added a new twist to the Odysseus-Cylops story as it had been inherited from Homer, namely Polyphemus's amatory interest in the nymph Galatea⁷² The comic potential of pairing a beautiful sea-nymph is obvious, ... relevant at this point is an ancient tradition that Philoxenus composed his Cyclops as a political allegory directed against the tyrant Dionysius I of Syracuse, in which poet and tyrant supposedly lay behind the figures of Odysseus and Cyclops, respectively.

p. 162

Polyphemus sings a tale of his own unrequited love. ... All the qualities that mark Odysseus in Odyssey 9 as a satirist figure—his stance of physical and emotional abjection and oppression, the indignation against an antagonist that inspires comic mockery—likewise characterize the Thecritean Cyclops. We find Polyphemus, for example, poignantly, if comically (to the audience anyway), adducing his physique as the reason Galatae flees his advances:

I know, beautiful girl, why you flee. It's because a hairy brow

stretches across my entire forehead, in one long length from one ear

to the other; beneath it there is one eye, and over the lip a flat nose.

(11.30–33)