3.1 Odysseus and the Cyclops (19:59)

From the "Greek and Roman Mythology" course - https://www.coursera.org/course/mythology - by Professor Peter Struck, University of Pennsylvania

Now we're moving on to books nine through
twelve of The Odyssey.

Some of the best parts of The Odyssey
exist in this arc of the story.

A lot of the things that you'll remember
about the cyclops, the sirens, all these

famous episodes get stuck into Odysseus
recounting his own tales.

Recall what's happened, we've been on this
island of Scheria for some books so

Odysseus has slowly carefully pieced
himself together.

He's got his strength back.
He's figured out a way to work himself

back into human society but his identity
is still a riddle.

His host don't know who he is.
And only after they've given him

overwhelming hospitality do they even
bother, or, they, do they even presume to

ask his name.
And now starting off in book nine,

Odysseus is going to start to fill in what
that ident, identity's all about.

Remember at the close of eight, the direct
question for him that came from the king,

Alcinous.
Now, tell us who you are?

And in trying to figure out that question
of identity there were several points

that, Alcinous made salient.
Your name, your lineage and where are you

from?
What is your name or your parents and what

place are you from?
Odysseus goes ahead and answers those

right at the beginning above nine sets out
his own identity straight forwardly for

his audience.
But then he carries on to fill up the last

piece, this is going to be his past.
What great things have you done?

Oh yes, yes, we need to know those, in
order to figure out who it is that you

are.
So a great Greek heroes identity is gonna

be, yes, name, lineage, whether from, and
also, a grand and glorious set of

adventures in their past, what they've
done magnificent things that they've

engage in.
Odysseus now when he identified himself is

also taking over the role of the bard in
the story.

He's going to become the singer of the
tale.

It's like Homer hands things over to him
and says go ahead Odysseus now you can to

have the reins for a while.
And then here's Odysseus basically in you

know, perfect dactylic hexameter just like
a real poet, performing for us his own

identity.
He gets to take over the story now form

nine through twelve with a short breather
in book eleven.

Now in the parts that we're going to turn
to in the coming books keep an eye on

this, certain overall structure.
They're are a lot of episodes that come

fast and furious, and lots of details,
lots of adventure to come up, but there is

a way that you can organize your reading
of it such that you can allocate interest

to what the episodes that are most
important.

They tend to come in threes in book nine,
we have a group of three, the adventure

with the Ciconians, then the Lotus Eaters,
then the Cyclops.

In book ten, we have another three,
Ilyste, the Lystrigonians and Cerces, then

in book eleven a long journey into the
underworld.

And book twelve another group of three.
The Sirens, Scylla, and Charybdis, and the

cattle of the son.
You can see our friends the sirens here.

Careful.
Watch out if you start to hear their song.

It's going to entice you in.
So we have in each of these groupings, two

short ones and a long one, that first
group of three in book nine, the Caconians

and the Lotaseaters are both actually very
short then the Cyclops is much longer and

takes up nearly half the book.
In group two we have Ealis the

Lystergonians, those are the two short
episodes, and then Zyrosy, which is the

much longer episode, the more substantial
episode in book ten.

Book eleven, longer digression in the
underworld, same cavings takes over again

in book twelve, short, short, long Siren,
Sillan and Karyptos, and the cattle of the

sun.
Watch for several important themes.

I'm just going to point out to a couple,
there are more that you're going to

identify yourself in your own reading look
for the idea of temptation.

There are pleasures awaiting you, but
those pleasures sometimes have a price

associated with them.
Also, curiosity goes together with

temptation to be tempted to grab something
also is married in this set of stories

with the idea of curiosity and gaining
knowledge.

Odysseus push and drive is always a sense
of my goodness, what is that over there?

It could be something amazing, and I've
got to spend some time trying to get to

know it.
Also, look out for Xanea, this idea of

treating a guest in a proper way shows up
in our stories, oftentimes in a perverted

sense, we get examples of how not do
Xanea, how not to treat your guest.

Watch out for food crimes of all kinds.
There are things floating around in these

stories, that are being treated like their
food, but really shouldn't be eaten and

when you see those keep an eye out keep an
eye out for them.

Lots of shape shifting going to be going
on, humans are going to be taking the

shapes of animals and strange creatures
are going to show up that are kind of

human but not quite.
Now, throughout this journey Odysseus is

constantly trying to find out new things.
Most of what happens in his exploration is

actually specifically keyed as a search
for knowledge.

He gets down to the underworld oh sorry,
he gets, when he gets over to Searcy, its,

its clue, he's, he's clued into the idea
that says that actually what you should be

doing is finding out an important secret.
There's a reason why all these terrible

things are happening to you while these
wonderful adventures, that you're having

and explorations that you're having, are
being forced upon you because of

something.
Go to the Underworld to find out.

There's a specific search for knowledge,
that's anchored from Circe forward.

But really all of the episodes have built
into them this kind of temptation toward

some unknown thing curiosity pulling the
way.

Not least behind us we see are sirens.
They have this amazing, marvelous song

that's going to bring Odysseus to new
depths of understanding as we'll see.

In order to get yourself a fuller sense of
what these episodes are all about take

some time to link them into your memory.
Get the groups of three straight.

There's going to be a quiz that pops up on
the next slide run through that quickly to

make sure you've got each of the episodes
straight in, in your own mind and then

we'll carry on with the rest of this
lecture.

During Odysseus's ventures the further out
we go the stranger things get.

Near the beginning we have some adventures
that seemed pretty much like standard hero

stuff.
He lands on the, the shores meets the

Kikonians.
They clobbered them, grabbed their

treasure and leave standard kind of a hero
pillaging behavior.

Then we get to Lotus eaters, they seem
roughly like normal people, we can

converse with them there's some social
interactions back and forth but they do

have the strange fixation on a certain
kind of food they like to eat the lowes

leaves.
Strange not sure what's so wonderful about

them.
They make them feel marvelous.

There must be some kind of pharmacological
effect.

Odysseus as man quite loved this.
And Odysseus realizes uh-uh, we've got to

go no sense in anchoring ourselves here.
For a hero you don't want to hang around

and relax.
You know, early retirement so you can play

golf is not the kind of thing a hero wants
to do.

Then we get to the cyclops.
With the cyclops, things get very strange.

We are definitely in the world of
strangeness when we arrive there.

The approach that Odysseus makes to the
cyclops is typical of a kind of approaches

we're going to see in these episodes.
The shore the, the ship will land on

shore, a party of men gets out.
They scout the horizon, look for places to

go.
See signs of life.

There might be smoke off in the off in the
far reaches, there might be a spring that

they want to go to, a food source
somewhere and they start to explore.

When they do, they make their way up a
path, maybe up a hillside.

A rocky place, a wooded place.
And they get to.

Something that's wondrous, and something
that's marvelous.

In this case, something that's
marvelously, marvelously strange and

frightening.
They arrive at the area of the Cyclops.

Looking around to see what they might find
and what they mostly find on their way in

to this strange clumping of, of, of
animals, a clumping of creatures is that

there's a lot of things that they're just
missing.

They're not quite like you and I, these
Cyclopses.

They're lacking cultivation.
They're, they don't know anything about

farming.
So they don't have the tools and resources

to subsist on a grain-based diet.
They don't have that settled farming

technology.
They don't have then also the kind of

supplement in their diet that grain would
give them.

A stable bread that they might have to,
to, to eat and to provide them with

nutrition.
They're going to have to get their

nutrition from somewhere else.
Watch out.

They don't have councils.
The Cyclopses don't get together to solve

problems, they don't work together to get
things done, they don't form alliances.

They also don't have homes, they just live
in these caves, completely rustic.

They're lacking each marker of
civilization most prominent among these or

at least something that we could really
remark on, is the fact that they don't

have ships.
These Cyclopses don't know how to build

ships, and since they don't, they're not
going to have contact with the outside

world, they're not going to meet lots of
people that are different from them which

for us, great Greek heroes that we are the
traders across the Mediterranean sea.

This is a sign of great lack of
civilization.

Not to be in contact with, network with,
people that are not like you.

That's very strange, that the Cyclopses
don't have that.

In their in their cultural purview, they
also lack and this importantly comes out

with Polyphemus, they entirely lack the
idea of Xenia.

Remember our statement about hospitality
and how important it is we see it coursing

through really most of the books of the
Odyssey it surely shows up in a negative

way in these episodes we see people not
performing the proper kind of Xenia or

hospitality.
The Cyclopses are really most prominent

example of this.
They don't understand the basic guest host

relationship.
Cyclops, the Polyphemus doesn't realize

that he's supposed to be providing a gift
to the people that arrive in his house.

He doesn't know how to do it.
He, he's not generous.

He doesn't provide Odysseus and his men
with the kind of overwhelming hospitality

that a real good host is supposed to do.
You might think that Odysseus and his men

are a bit rude cuz they just keep you
know, rummaging around on their own,

looking for it and asking for it.
Right in the Cyclops' face they ask for a

gift that might seem a little bit forward
or a little bit presumptuousness but

actually Homer doesn't seem to bat an eye
about it and the reason that he doesn't is

because he thinks presumably that oh, this
is a great hero, of course, he should be

getting some gift giving, but of course he
gets none.

The gifts in the episode show up in
interesting ways.

Odysseus is repeatedly asking for one when
he arrives there, hey where's my gift, I'm

a guest in your house, where is my gift?
Cyclops doesn't provide it, then also

there's that wine that Odysseus brings
from this ship as their making their way

into the center of the island to look for
this civilization.

And they grab that and take that with
them.

Odysseus recalls it as a gift that he got
himself, a guest gift that he got himself

from a hero called Maron.
Odysseus had saved his family as heroes

might do sometimes Maron then gave him the
gift of the wine.

Odysseus is now going to use this.
Later on in the episode it becomes his

perverted gift to Cyclops.
He says, here, why don't you have some of

this wine?
What it's going to do is not make the

Cyclops enjoy wine, such as people do
under normal circumstances, is going to

utterly debilitate him so that Odysseus
and his mates can do some awful things and

poke out the one eye the poor cyclops has.
I keep saying poor cyclops, I'm not sure

why I feel sorry for him.
I do, a little bit anyway.

But so, they just drill this awful heated
opposed into the Cyclops's eye.

The thing is now blinded and utterly named
having failed to give gifts to Odysseys

men he gets the nasty one in return.
Now, the gift giving and the laws of Xenia

are consistently violently in the scene
were they violated at their worst, is when

the Cyclops decides not to serve food to
Odysseus's men but instead to use

Odysseus's men as his own food.
He grabs two of Odysseus's compatriots

right, when he sees them.
Smashes their head against the ground and

eats their brains.
This is very bad manners.

You're not supposed to do this kind of
thing, instead a good host is supposed to

feed his guest not feed on his guests.
The cyclops goes ahead and does that.

The worst perversion of all that one can
imagine for the rules of Xenia.

It's not only that the cyclops is ignoring
the rules of Xenia, it's that the cyclops

is actually perverting them.
Turning them inside out in awful, awful

ways.
This brings us to universal law number

three, universal law number three, pretty
much held true across all of human

society.
All my universal law are like that.

Universal law number three is, it's not
good to be food.

It is not good to be food.
Human beings do not like the idea of

becoming food for other creatures.
It is a source of revulsion to us.

It's so awful that it causes us to have an
awful kind of disgust response.

Ugh.
It's not just terrifying or frightening,

it's actually utterly disgusting.
The violence that's involved in killing

someone is here gone a further step as a
ripped up human being is now chewed on,

swallowed and metabolized.
The full annihilation that comes through

metabolism seems to be worth at the core
of just how awful it is to image a human

being becoming food.
Then there's also the problem that reminds

us that whatever living things that are
out there in the world survive.

It's true.
By eating other living things.

That's a sad thing about organic, the
organic world but is indeed nearly

universally true that living things
survive by eating other living things.

When you and I start to think of ourselves
as food we place ourselves in this very

broad spectrum of all of living things out
there who are part of a food chain.

I think that there's a part of us that
likes to think of ourselves as much more

special than that and not just as a member
in a food chain.

It makes us it's awful for us to think of
ourselves as belonging to that part of

what it is to be inside, of, to be a
living organism as well.

Now, to make his way out of this
particular problem, Odysseus has this

amazingly clever idea of debilitating the
Cyclops rather than killing him.

Killing the Cyclops they'd be stuck in the
cave in the cave so he debilitates and

this then gives Odysseus a means to get
out of the cave.

Straps himself to the bottom of the ram
and has his mates strapped to the bottom

of the other animals in the flock and they
escape out the open door underneath these

animals when Cyclops tries to check the
animals to make sure nothing funny's going

on about Odysseus and his men get through
and get out.

Not before Odysseus in a further sense of
cleverness introduces another of the

famous tricks in this episode when he is
tormenting the Cyclops.

The cyclops is asking his name.
Odysseus says my name is No Man.

Now this the Polyphemus being sure that
the person that is having all this doing

all this mischief in his own cave is
named, No Man.

When his neighbors come over to ask him
what's wrong, Polyphemus he says to his

fellows Cyclopses, "Well I'm, No Man is
harming me, No Man is harming me," at

which point.
The fellow's not to bright.

So yah, okay well one's harming you we'll
just go back to our business.

So they just depart and go away.
Odysseus then adopts this pure anonymity,

the name of no name.
He, in some ways loses his name in the

Cyclops episode not though quite well
enough in Marx's entrance into a certain

kind of anonymity, in a strange world
modern about Odysseus is on his way out,

like great heroes who can't stand the idea
that the Cyclops might go through the rest

of his life not knowing who it is that
beat him.

So as he and his men are escaping,
Odysseus shouts back, oh, and by the way

in case anyone wants to know, the one who
blinded you and beat you at this

competition is Odysseus.
Now, when he does that Odysseus can't help

but give his name so that his fame can
spread and his glory can spread for having

bested Polyphemus.
But what he does is give Polyphemus now a

means to draw down a curse on Odysseus.
Odysseus would have been completely at

anonymous.
Had he not told Polyphemus' name, shouting

out his name at the end gives him the
glory of having bested Polyphemus but it

now gives Polyphemus the means to call
down a terrible curse on Odysseus.

Without the name, Polyphemus would have
been powerless to do it.

The name gives him a way in, it's like his
address, his special identity.

Now that Polyphemus knows Odysseus's
identity, he can say to his father, who

just happened to be Poseidon.
Sorry Odysseus, bad mistake.

Just happens to be beside.
Dad, take care of that awful man Odysseus,

who took care of me.
And when he does that Polyphemus will

surely answer him and nasty things are
going to come Odysseus' way.

Now if we wanted to half step back and
tried to think about this episode as a

whole, Cyclops represents according to one
of the tools we've already seen in our

curse, a wonderful example of a kind of
social lesson on the importance of Zenia.

In the case of Polyphemus, this is the
kind of reading I've been developing for

you, in the case of Polyphemus, this
example of Xenia is actually a perverted

example.
He stands as a perfect negative example of

what not to do.
And with this story, all the Greeks that

are reading can sit back and listen to a
myth that underlines and underscores the

importance of proper guest treatment.
The importance of properly treating a

guest.
Without doing that, a person is running

the risk of being compared to one of these
awful criminals the cyclops himself.

So make sure that you uphold Xenia, you
Greeks, otherwise some people might start

thinking you're acting like a cyclops and,
boy, that would be a horrible thing for

people to think about you.