Cyclops

A parody of the story of Polyphemus in the ninth book of Homer’s Odyssey, Euripides’ Cyclops is the only satyr play that has reached us in its entirety. A satyr play was a comic piece with a chorus of satyrs, the goat-like followers of Dionysus, staged in the dramatic competitions after the tragedies. The play begins with Silenus, the eldest of the satyrs, explaining how he and his sons sailed in search of the kidnapped Dionysus, were blown off course to Sicily, and have been slaves of the Cyclops ever since (lines 1–35). Odysseus and his sailors then arrive, in need of water and food, and offer Silenus wine in exchange for lambs and cheese (lines 96–174). Silenus cannot resist, even though the food belongs to his master. When the Cyclops, Polyphemus, returns and finds his goods packed up, Silenus swears that the strangers were robbing him (lines 203–270). Odysseus defends himself, and then pleads with the Cyclops on the ground of the war at Troy and the customs of hospitality, but Polyphemus answers that his belly is the greatest of the gods, and takes the men into his cave to eat them (lines 285–346). Odysseus escapes for a short time, tells the satyrs how the Cyclops killed and ate two of his men, and explains his plan of getting the monster drunk and burning out his eye with a stake (lines 375–482). He then gives the Cyclops the wine, tells him that his name is “Noman,” and watches him carry Silenus off into the cave like a Ganymede (lines 503–589). The satyrs, who had promised to help, invent excuses when the time comes, so Odysseus blinds Polyphemus with his own men (lines 624–662). When the blinded Cyclops cries that “Noman” has hurt him, the satyrs reply that then no one is hurting him (lines 663–676). Odysseus tells his real name from a safe distance, and Polyphemus says that an old oracle has come true and threatens to break a boulder from the rock to crush the ship (lines 689–707).

Date and Historical Background

The year in which Cyclops was first performed is not known. Dates of 408 BC (as a companion to Orestes) and 425 BC have been suggested, but no ancient source gives either, so both are uncertain. The play itself gives no date. Its central episode is the adventure of Odysseus with the Cyclops in Homer, Odyssey 9, where the same man-eating giant, the wine of Maron (in Homer a priest of Apollo, in the play a son of Dionysus, line 141), the trick with a name meaning “Nobody,” and the oracle of the blinding are found (Homer, Odyssey 9.196–198 for Maron, 9.364–367 and 9.403–414 for the name, and 9.507–512 for the oracle; in the play, lines 548–549, 672–676, 696–700). The satyrs, Silenus, and the material of the opening about Hera, the Giants and the pirates (lines 1–12) are not part of the story in Odyssey 9.

Characters and Setting

Characters

• Odysseus, the most cunning of all Greek heroes at Troy, on his journey back to Ithaca
• Polyphemus, the Cyclops from the title, a one-eyed son of Poseidon living beneath Mount Aetna (lines 20–24, 231, 262)
• Silenus, the eldest of the satyrs, in forced servitude to the Cyclops
• Chorus of satyrs, sons of Silenus and shepherds of the Cyclops’ flocks (lines 26–28, 36)

Setting

The play is set in front of the cave of the Cyclops beneath Mount Aetna in Sicily, after the sack of Troy (lines 20–22, 107, 114).

Summary of Cyclops

Prologue

(Lines 1–40.) In the opening monologue, Silenus addresses Dionysus (Bromius) and says that he has borne countless troubles for his sake. The first was when Dionysus was driven mad by Hera and left the nymphs who nursed him (lines 3–4); the second, when Silenus fought beside him in the battle against the Giants and killed Enceladus with his spear (lines 5–9), which Silenus himself half suspects he may have dreamed, but insists that he showed the spoils to Dionysus. The third and worst is the present one (line 10). Hera had sent a band of Tyrrhenian pirates against Dionysus, so that he would be carried far away (lines 11–12); Silenus heard of it and sailed with his sons to look for the god, steering the ship from the stern while the sons rowed (lines 13–17). Near Cape Malea an east wind drove them onto the rock of Aetna, where the one-eyed sons of the sea god, the man-killing Cyclopes, live in lonely caves (lines 18–22). Captured by one of them, Polyphemus, they are now his slaves; instead of Bacchic revels they pasture the flocks of the godless Cyclops (lines 23–26). The satyrs graze the young animals on the far slopes, while Silenus must stay behind to fill the troughs, sweep the cave, and serve the Cyclops at his “unholy meals” (lines 27–35). He is raking out the house when he sees his sons driving the flocks home (line 36).

Parodos (Entrance Song)

(Lines 41–81.) The Chorus of satyrs enters driving the sheep, and first talks to the animals, telling a horned one to come off the dewy slope and into the fold (lines 41–62). Then they mourn the absence of Dionysus: “Here we have no Bromian god; no dances, no thyrsus-bearing Bacchants, no roll of drums, no drops of sparkling wine by the springs” (lines 63–66). They ask the god where he is wandering alone while they, his servants, serve the one-eyed Cyclops as slaves in a wretched goatskin cloak, parted from his love (lines 73–80).

First Episode

(Lines 82–355.) Silenus tells the satyrs to drive the flocks into the cave: he has seen a Greek ship at the shore and men coming up with empty water jars, looking for food (lines 82–95). Odysseus asks for a spring or someone who sells food, sees the satyrs, and greets the eldest first (lines 96–101). When he gives his name, Silenus says he knows him as a “prating knave,” of Sisyphus’ shrewd stock (lines 102–105). Odysseus says he has been driven here by storms (lines 107–109), and in a rapid question-and-answer, Silenus tells him that Aetna has no cities, that the Cyclopes live in caves, answer to no one, eat only milk, cheese and meat, have no wine, and that no stranger has ever left alive (lines 113–128). The Cyclops is out hunting (line 130). Odysseus offers wine, given to him by Maron, the son of Dionysus (lines 139–143); Silenus tastes it and is won over (lines 149–162), and says he would give the Cyclops’ whole flock for one cup, and would then jump off the Leucadian rock to be rid of his troubles (lines 163–174). He goes into the cave for lambs and cheese.

In his absence the satyr Chorus asks Odysseus whether the Greeks took Helen and whether each of them took her in turn, and in a bitter, comic speech says she left Menelaus for a man with embroidered trousers and a golden chain (lines 175–187). Silenus comes back with the food and wants to be paid with the wine at once (lines 188–192), but the Chorus cries that the Cyclops is coming (line 193). Silenus advises the men to hide in the rock. Odysseus refuses, because he would not shame Troy by running from one man (lines 194–201).

Polyphemus arrives shouting for light, and scolds the satyrs for their idleness: there is no Bacchic revelry here (lines 203–211). He asks whether breakfast is ready and the milk bowls full (lines 214–219), and then sees the strangers, the lambs tied up with twisted willow, and old Silenus with a swollen bald head (lines 220–227). Silenus says that the strangers beat him because he would not let them rob the Cyclops (lines 228–233), and that they threatened to tie Polyphemus up and sell him (lines 234–240). Polyphemus orders his cleavers sharpened and a fire lit, for he has not eaten human flesh for a long time (lines 241–249). Odysseus speaks in his own defence: Silenus sold the lambs for a cup of wine, willingly, without force (lines 253–260). Silenus swears on Poseidon, Triton and Nereus that it is not so (lines 261–269), but the Chorus contradicts him, saying they saw the sale with their own eyes (lines 270–272). Polyphemus declares that he trusts Silenus more than Rhadamanthys (lines 273–274).

The Cyclops asks where the strangers come from, and Odysseus answers that they are Ithacans on the way home from the sack of Troy (lines 275–279). Polyphemus remarks that it was a poor expedition, to sail to Phrygia for one woman (lines 280–284). Odysseus replies that it was the work of a god and begs for his life, as a free man and a suppliant: the Greeks protected Poseidon’s sanctuaries at Taenarus, Malea, Sunium and Geraestus (lines 285–296), the war has emptied Greece of men and left widows and childless parents (lines 303–307), and it is the custom among men to receive shipwrecked men as suppliants (lines 299–302). Silenus cuts in with the advice to eat the speaker’s tongue, to become a clever talker (lines 313–315).

The Cyclops will have none of it. “Wealth, little man, is the god of the wise,” he says, and everything else is show (line 316). He does not fear the thunder of Zeus and does not think Zeus the stronger (lines 320–321). He sacrifices to no one but himself and “this belly, the greatest of the gods,” and says that to eat and drink every day and give oneself no pain is the “Zeus” of sensible men (lines 331–338). Lawgivers who “embroider” human life can go hang (lines 338–340). He gives the strangers a hospitality-gift: fire and his father’s cauldron (lines 342–344). He goes into the cave, forcing the men in. Odysseus prays to Athena and Zeus, god of strangers, to look on his trouble (lines 347–355).

The Chorus sings a song (lines 356–375). They imagine Polyphemus opening his throat to the boiled and roasted limbs of the strangers, they curse the godless Cyclops, and speak of his killing of guests at his own hearth.

Second Episode

(Lines 375–482.) Odysseus comes out of the cave in horror: “O Zeus, what shall I say, having seen such terrible things in the cave, things hard to believe, more like stories than the deeds of men?” (lines 375–376). The Chorus asks, and Odysseus tells them: the Cyclops picked out two of the fattest men and weighed them in his hand (lines 379–380). He made a fire, put his bed and a great bowl of milk beside it, set a bronze pot on the flames, and laid out spits and axes (lines 382–395). He cut the throat of one man over the pot, dashed out the brains of the other against the rock, and then roasted part of them and boiled the rest (lines 396–404). The other men crouched like frightened birds in the crannies of the rock (lines 405–408). When the Cyclops had eaten and lay back, Odysseus had a sudden idea: he offered him a cup of Maron’s wine (lines 409–415). Polyphemus drank, was delighted, and drank another (lines 416–424). He is now singing out of tune while the sailors weep, and Odysseus has slipped out to offer the satyrs the chance of escape and a return to Dionysus (lines 425–436).

The satyrs are eager (lines 437–440). Odysseus’ plan is not to kill the Cyclops in the thickets or throw him off a cliff (lines 447–449), but to keep him from going to revel with his brother Cyclopes by telling him to keep the wine for himself (lines 445–453). When he falls asleep, Odysseus will sharpen an olive branch he saw lying in the cave, heat it in the fire and thrust it into the Cyclops’ eye, turning it like a shipwright’s drill (lines 454–463). Then he will take the satyrs and Silenus aboard his ship (lines 466–468). The Chorus is delighted and says that it wants a share of the work (lines 469–475). Odysseus tells them to obey when he gives the word and goes back in: he could save himself but will not desert his friends (lines 476–481).

The satyrs, divided into two half-choruses, ask who will be first to grip the stake and gouge out the eye (lines 483–486). Then they see the drunken Cyclops coming out of the cave, singing loudly and out of tune (lines 487–494), and they sing a song of drinking and love (lines 495–502), followed by a warning to the Cyclops that a hostile stake awaits him instead of a bride (lines 511–518).

Third Episode

(Lines 503–607.) The Cyclops comes out full of wine, calls for the wineskin and plans to go to his brother Cyclopes for a spring revel (lines 503–510). Odysseus brings the skin and, when asked who Bacchus is, answers “the greatest god for cheering men’s lives” (lines 519–522). The Cyclops asks how a god can live in a wineskin and says he hates the skin but loves what is in it (lines 525–529). Odysseus argues him out of sharing the wine with his brothers (lines 531–538), and Silenus, who wants the wine for himself, takes his side (lines 539–541). He puts the mixing-bowl behind the Cyclops, saying that no passer-by should find it, and the Cyclops answers that he plans to drink on the sly and makes him put it between them (lines 543–546).

The Cyclops asks the stranger’s name. “Noman,” says Odysseus, and asks for a favor in return. “I will eat you last, after your companions,” is the answer (lines 548–551). The Cyclops catches Silenus sipping the wine, and Silenus says that the wine “kissed” him (lines 552–555). He cheats again by drinking the Cyclops’ cup behind a pretended lesson in how to drink gracefully (lines 558–565), and the Cyclops decides that the stranger must be the cup-bearer instead (lines 566–570). Odysseus pours, telling him to drink in silence and not to leave anything (lines 571–575). The Cyclops, already drunk, sees the sky and the throne of Zeus whirling around, and says he will lie down with his Ganymede, as he now calls Silenus (lines 576–586). Silenus cries for help from his sons: “I am undone, children; terrible treatment awaits me!” (line 587). The Cyclops asks whether he means to find fault with his lover, and Silenus, dragged into the cave, groans that he will soon find the wine very bitter (lines 588–589).

Odysseus calls on the satyrs: the Cyclops will soon be sleeping and vomiting, and the stake is already smoking in the cave (lines 590–595). The Chorus says it will be strong as rock and iron and tells him to go in before Silenus is harmed (lines 596–598). Odysseus prays to Hephaestus, lord of Aetna, to rid himself of a troublesome neighbor, and to Sleep, child of Night, to come on the monster; otherwise Chance would have to be regarded as greater than the gods (lines 599–606). He goes in.

The Chorus sings a short song (lines 608–623), in which they say that the guest-eater will soon lose the light of his eye, that the stake lies hidden in the ashes, and that they long for Dionysus.

Fourth Episode

(Lines 624–709.) “Silence, you animals, I beg you! Close your lips, make no sound! I forbid anyone to breathe or blink or clear his throat, so that the pest does not wake before the Cyclops’ eye has been through the fire,” says Odysseus on coming out (lines 624–628). He orders the satyrs in to take hold of the red-hot stake (lines 630–631). They ask him to name who should go first (lines 632–634), but one half of the Chorus says that it stands too far from the door to reach the Cyclops’ eye (lines 635–636); the other says it has just gone lame, and the first adds that it has sprained an ankle just by standing still, and that there is dust or ash in its eyes (lines 637–641). Odysseus calls them worthless allies (line 642). The Chorus defends itself, saying that it knows an Orphic spell that will make the stake enter the Cyclops’ skull of its own accord (lines 643–648). Odysseus answers that he has always known their nature and will use his own friends, but asks them to shout encouragement (lines 649–653). The Chorus agrees (lines 654–655), and then, as Odysseus goes in, calls on the men inside to burn the Cyclops’ eyebrow and eye (lines 656–661).

A cry is heard from inside: “Oh, oh! My once bright eye is burnt to cinders” (line 663). The Chorus asks him to sing the triumph song, and the Cyclops, staggering to the entrance, threatens that no one will leave the cave (lines 664–668). Asked why he cries, he says “Noman has undone me” and that “Noman is blinding me” (lines 672–673). The satyrs reason that if no one is blinding him, he is not blind (lines 672–674). He asks where “Noman” is: “Nowhere, Cyclops” (lines 674–675). Then he understands that the stranger got him drunk (line 676).

He asks the Chorus where the men are, and the satyrs, in a scene of cruel comedy, send him one way and the other, so that he runs his head against the rock (lines 679–686). He shouts that they are mocking him (line 687). Odysseus, standing a little way off, calls out and gives his real name: “Odysseus, the name my father gave me,” and says that he had to punish him for the unholy feast, since the sack of Troy would have been in vain if he had not avenged his comrades (lines 689–695). The Cyclops answers: “Alas, the old oracle is coming true. It said that I would lose my eye by your hand on your way back from Troy, and also that you would pay for it by being tossed on the sea for many days” (lines 696–700). Odysseus tells him to go hang and says he is going to the beach to sail his hollow ship home (lines 701–703). The Cyclops answers that he will break a boulder from the rock and crush the ship and its crew, blind as he is, and climb the hill through the tunnel (lines 704–707). The play ends with the satyrs saying that they will sail with Odysseus and serve Dionysus from now on (lines 708–709).

A Brief Analysis

Cyclops is the only complete satyr play that has reached us, so there is no other complete play to show how typical it is. What can be seen in the text is this. First, it is short: 709 lines, against 1,093 for Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, for example. Second, the chorus is made up of satyrs, who speak of Dionysus, wine and women all the time (lines 63–81, 169–171, 495–502), and make crude jokes, for example about Helen (lines 177–187), and about Silenus carried off as Ganymede (lines 576–589). Third, a heroic story is turned into comedy: Odysseus, who in Homer leads his crew into the cave and keeps the lead throughout, here has to bargain with a drunken old satyr and finds himself abandoned by the chorus at the decisive moment (lines 635–648).

The text sets three attitudes against each other. Odysseus appeals to law, the gods and the common custom of hospitality (lines 285–312), and invokes Athena and Zeus as protectors of strangers (lines 347–355). The Cyclops denies them: he laughs at Zeus’ thunder, calls his belly “the greatest of the gods” and says that lawgivers can go hang (lines 316–341). The satyrs and Silenus are loyal above all to Dionysus and the wine: Silenus would give the Cyclops’ whole flock for one cup (lines 163–174), and the satyrs promise to help and then do not (lines 469–475, 632–648). Odysseus is not simply the hero: he refuses to leave his friends (lines 476–481), but he also presents the Trojan War as a defence of Greece (lines 285–296), and the Cyclops sees in the blinding an old oracle fulfilled, with a long wandering at sea foretold for Odysseus (lines 696–700). The play ends without telling us what happens to the ship.

Cyclops Sources

Euripides, Cyclops, lines 1–709, for all scenes, speakers and quotations; Homer, Odyssey 9 (Polyphemus, the name “Nobody,” Maron at 9.196–198, the name at 9.364–367 and 9.403–414, the oracle of Telemus at 9.507–512). The Greek text can be read here.

See Also: Polyphemus, Odysseus, Silenus, Euripides