Polyphemus

Polyphemus was a giant Cyclops in Greek mythology, best known from Homer’s Odyssey. He was the son of Poseidon and the sea nymph Thoosa, and he lived apart from ordinary human society as a shepherd. His most famous story tells how Odysseus and his men entered his cave, were trapped inside, and escaped only after blinding his single eye (Odyssey 9.105–566).

The encounter with Polyphemus is one of the most important moments in the Odyssey. Odysseus defeats the Cyclops through cleverness, but then reveals his real name in pride. Polyphemus calls upon Poseidon, his father, and asks him to punish Odysseus. This curse becomes one of the main reasons Odysseus’ journey home to Ithaca lasts so long (Odyssey 1.68–75).

Who Was Polyphemus?

Family and Background

Polyphemus was the son of Poseidon, god of the sea, and Thoosa, a nymph who was the daughter of Phorcys, a lord of the unresting sea; Homer says she bore him after lying with Poseidon in hollow caves (Odyssey 1.68–73). Polyphemus himself prays to Poseidon as his father (Odyssey 9.528–529), and the Epitome of Apollodorus gives the same parents (Epitome 7.4). Homer calls him “godlike” and says his strength was the greatest among all the Cyclopes (Odyssey 1.70–71). This divine parentage explains why the blinding of Polyphemus has such serious results for Odysseus.

Homer names Poseidon as the father of Polyphemus alone. He does not say that the other Cyclopes were Poseidon’s sons. Hesiod gives a different set of Cyclopes, Brontes, Steropes and Arges, who are children of Heaven (Uranus) and Earth (Gaia) (Theogony 139–146).

One of the Cyclopes

Polyphemus belonged to the Cyclopes, a race of one-eyed giants. In the Odyssey, the Cyclopes have no assemblies for counsel and no laws; they live in hollow caves on high mountain tops, and each one rules over his own children and wives without caring for the others (Odyssey 9.106–115). They do not plant or plough, because grain and vines grow for them unsown and unploughed, and they have no ships or shipwrights (Odyssey 9.107–111, 9.125–129). Polyphemus is shown as strong and dangerous, but also isolated from the rules that guide civilized life.

A Shepherd Giant

Polyphemus kept sheep and goats in his cave. He pastured his flocks alone and far away from the others, and Homer says he was a monstrous sight, not like a bread-eating man but like a wooded peak standing alone among high mountains (Odyssey 9.187–192). He made cheese, stored milk in baskets and vessels, and lived from his flocks (Odyssey 9.231–249). At first, his cave seems like a rich and useful place to Odysseus and his men, but it soon becomes a prison. The same great door-stone that shuts in his flocks, which twenty-two four-wheeled wagons could not lift from the ground, also traps the Greeks inside (Odyssey 9.240–243).

Polyphemus in the Odyssey

Odysseus Reaches the Land of the Cyclopes

After leaving the land of the Lotus Eaters, Odysseus and his ships came to the land of the Cyclopes (Odyssey 9.82–105). Curious about the people who lived there, Odysseus chose twelve of his best men and went inland, carrying a skin of dark wine given to him by Maron (Odyssey 9.193–211). They found the cave of Polyphemus while he was away with his flocks.

The Cave of Polyphemus

Inside the cave, Odysseus and his men found baskets of cheese, and pens full of lambs and kids. The men begged Odysseus to take the cheeses and some lambs and kids and sail away, but he refused, because he wanted to see the owner and hoped for a guest-gift (Odyssey 9.216–230). This decision brought them face to face with Polyphemus.

Polyphemus Traps the Greeks

When Polyphemus returned, he drove his animals into the cave and closed the entrance with the huge stone. Odysseus asked for hospitality, reminding the Cyclops that Zeus protects suppliants and strangers. Polyphemus rejected this rule: the Cyclopes, he said, care nothing for Zeus or the blessed gods, since they are far stronger (Odyssey 9.266–278). He seized two of Odysseus’ men, dashed them against the ground, and ate them (Odyssey 9.287–293). He ate two more the next morning and two more that evening, six in all (Odyssey 9.311, 9.344). Odysseus thought of stabbing him as he lay asleep, but realized that they could not move the stone from the door and would die in the cave (Odyssey 9.299–305).

The Trick of Nobody

Odysseus Gives a False Name

Odysseus knew that he could not defeat Polyphemus by strength. Instead, he used a trick. He gave the Cyclops the strong wine three times, and when Polyphemus asked his name and promised a guest-gift, Odysseus said that his name was Nobody (Outis). Polyphemus promised to eat Nobody last, after his companions, and that would be his gift (Odyssey 9.355–370).

The Blinding of Polyphemus

The plan was a sharpened stake cut from a green olive-wood club that lay in the cave (Odyssey 9.316–328). After Polyphemus fell asleep, Odysseus and his men heated its point in the fire. Four men, with Odysseus above them, drove it into the Cyclops’ single eye and turned it, like a man drilling a ship’s timber with a drill (Odyssey 9.375–394). Polyphemus screamed in pain, and the other Cyclopes came from their caves to ask what was wrong (Odyssey 9.395–406).

Why the Trick Worked

Because Odysseus had said his name was Nobody, Polyphemus shouted that Nobody was killing him by guile and not by force (Odyssey 9.408). The other Cyclopes answered that if no one was attacking him, his illness must come from great Zeus and could not be avoided, and that he should pray to his father, the lord Poseidon (Odyssey 9.410–412). They left him alone, and Odysseus’ trick succeeded.

The Escape from Polyphemus

The Sheep Trick

Even blind, Polyphemus still blocked the cave entrance. In the morning, he moved the stone and sat by the doorway with his hands spread out, feeling the backs of the animals as they went out to pasture. Odysseus tied his men under the bellies of the rams, three to a group, where the Cyclops could not feel them (Odyssey 9.424–461).

The Ram of Polyphemus

Odysseus himself escaped clinging beneath the largest ram. Polyphemus touched the ram and spoke to it sadly, wondering why it was the last to leave the cave when it was always first, and saying that it must miss the eye of its master, which Nobody and his wretched companions had put out (Odyssey 9.443–460). He did not know that Odysseus was clinging beneath it.

The Greeks Reach the Ship

Once outside, Odysseus and his men let go of the animals, drove the fat, long-legged sheep to the ship, and rowed away from the shore (Odyssey 9.462–471). For a moment, it seemed that they had escaped through cleverness alone.

The Curse of Polyphemus

Odysseus Reveals His Name

As the ship pulled away, Odysseus could not resist mocking Polyphemus. When he was within shouting distance, he told the Cyclops that he had been punished by Zeus and the other gods for eating guests (Odyssey 9.473–479). Polyphemus hurled a piece of a hilltop that fell just in front of the ship and drove it back to the shore, and when the men rowed out again, Odysseus wanted to shout once more. His companions begged him not to provoke the savage, but, against their advice, he called out his true name: Odysseus, sacker of cities, son of Laertes, who lives in Ithaca (Odyssey 9.480–505).

Polyphemus Calls on Poseidon

Once Polyphemus knew the real name of the man who blinded him, he prayed to Poseidon. He asked his father not to let Odysseus reach home; but if it was his fate to see his friends and his house again, he should come late, in misery, in a stranger’s ship, with all his companions lost, and find trouble in his house (Odyssey 9.528–535). He had been told long ago by the seer Telemus that he would lose his sight at the hands of Odysseus, but had always expected a great and strong man, not a small and feeble one (Odyssey 9.506–516). This prayer became a major turning point in the Odyssey.

Poseidon’s Anger

Poseidon heard the prayer (Odyssey 9.536). From that time on he is angry with Odysseus: he does not kill him, but keeps him from his homecoming, as the gods say at the opening of the poem (Odyssey 1.68–75). Teiresias warns Odysseus in the underworld that Poseidon bears a grudge because he blinded his dear son (Odyssey 11.100–103). Odysseus’ raft is wrecked by Poseidon near the land of the Phaeacians (Odyssey 5.282–296), and when the Phaeacians bring him home, Poseidon turns their ship to stone (Odyssey 13.159–164). The blinding of Polyphemus therefore connects the Cyclops episode with the whole shape of the Odyssey.

Polyphemus and Galatea

The Lovesick Cyclops

Polyphemus also appears in later Greek and Roman poetry as a lover of Galatea, a beautiful sea nymph. In this tradition, he is still huge and frightening, but he is also shown as lonely and lovesick. In Theocritus’ Idylls 6 and 11 he sings to Galatea and tries to win her affection, and in Ovid’s Metamorphoses he combs his hair and sings to her on the shore (Theocritus, Idyll 11; Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.750–869).

Acis and Galatea

In Ovid’s version, Galatea herself tells the story. She loved a young man named Acis, the son of Faunus and the nymph Symaethis. Polyphemus became jealous when he saw them together. In anger, he tore a piece from the mountain and crushed Acis with a great rock. Galatea then caused his blood to flow out from under the rock and turn into a river, and Acis became a river god (Ovid, Metamorphoses 13.750–897).

A Different Side of Polyphemus

The story of Galatea gives Polyphemus a different role from the one he has in the Odyssey. In Homer, he is mainly a savage and dangerous host. In later poetry, he also becomes a figure of rejected love, jealousy, and loneliness. Euripides’ satyr play Cyclops retells the Odyssey episode in a comic form, with Silenus and the satyrs as the Cyclops’ servants.

Polyphemus’ Role and Symbolism

Savage Strength Against Cleverness

Polyphemus is stronger than Odysseus, but he is not cleverer. His story is one of the clearest examples in the Odyssey of Odysseus winning through intelligence rather than force. Odysseus himself says he planned how to take revenge and that Athena might grant him glory (Odyssey 9.316–318), and he reasons that they could not move the stone themselves (Odyssey 9.299–305).

The Failure of Hospitality

Polyphemus breaks the sacred rules of hospitality. Instead of welcoming strangers, he imprisons and eats them. When Odysseus appeals to Zeus, god of strangers, he answers that the Cyclopes do not fear him (Odyssey 9.266–278). Odysseus later tells him that Zeus and the other gods have punished him for eating guests in his own house (Odyssey 9.477–479).

The Danger of Pride

At the same time, the episode also shows Odysseus’ own weakness. He escapes successfully, but he shouts his name to the Cyclops against the pleading of his companions (Odyssey 9.491–505). This act gives Polyphemus the power to call down Poseidon’s punishment.

Polyphemus and the Cyclopes

The Homeric Cyclopes

The Cyclopes of the Odyssey are shepherd giants. They live apart from each other and have neither assemblies nor laws (Odyssey 9.112–115). Polyphemus is the most famous of these Cyclopes because of his meeting with Odysseus, and Homer calls him the strongest of them (Odyssey 1.70–71).

Different Cyclopes in Greek Mythology

Not all Cyclopes in Greek mythology are the same. In Hesiod, the Cyclopes are Brontes, Steropes and Arges, who gave Zeus the thunder and made him the thunderbolt, and who were like the gods except for the one round eye in the middle of their foreheads (Theogony 139–146). Polyphemus belongs to the Odyssey’s group of savage shepherds, not to Hesiod’s craftsmen of Zeus.

Misconceptions and Lesser-Known Facts

Polyphemus Was Not Killed by Odysseus

Odysseus did not kill Polyphemus. He blinded him and escaped. Killing him in his sleep would have left the Greeks shut in, since they could not move the huge stone at the cave entrance (Odyssey 9.299–305).

Polyphemus Did Not Know Odysseus’ Name at First

Polyphemus learned Odysseus’ real name only after the escape. Before that, he believed the stranger’s name was Nobody. This detail is the center of Odysseus’ trick (Odyssey 9.364–370, 9.502–505).

Polyphemus Was More Than a Simple Monster

Polyphemus is often remembered only as a man-eating giant, but ancient literature gives him more than one side. In the Odyssey he is brutal and lawless, though he speaks tenderly to his ram (Odyssey 9.447–460), while in later poems about Galatea he is also lonely, emotional, and rejected.

Unraveling Polyphemus: The Cyclops Who Cursed Odysseus

Polyphemus is one of the most famous creatures in Greek mythology because his story brings together danger, cleverness, violence, and pride. His cave is the place where Odysseus uses his wits to escape, and also the place where he makes one of his worst mistakes.

By revealing his name, Odysseus turns a narrow escape into a long curse. Polyphemus loses his eye, but his prayer to Poseidon shapes the rest of Odysseus’ return, so that the Cyclops is the cause of much of the suffering that follows.

Polyphemus Sources

Polyphemus appears most famously in Homer’s Odyssey, especially Book 9 (105–566), where Odysseus tells the story of the Cyclops’ cave, the trick of Nobody, the escape under the sheep, and the curse of Poseidon. His parentage is given in Odyssey 1.68–75, and the effects of the curse in Odyssey 5.282–296, 11.100–103 and 13.159–164. The Cyclopes of Hesiod are described in the Theogony (139–146). Apollodorus’ Epitome (7.4) gives his parents, and Euripides’ satyr play Cyclops dramatizes the episode. Polyphemus also appears in later poetry, including Theocritus’ Idylls (6 and 11) and Ovid’s Metamorphoses (13.750–897), where his love for Galatea and jealousy of Acis are described.

See Also: Odysseus, Poseidon, Thoosa, Cyclopes, Galatea, Acis, Ithaca, Lotus Eaters