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Head of Polyphemus. It is dated to the 4th c. CE and comes from the amphitheater at Salona. A 4th c. Polyphemus receives a love-letter from Galateia, a 1st-century CE fresco from Pompeii. Via Wikimedia Commons. Share this: Twitter Facebook. Like this: Like Loading Published by sarahemilybond.
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Email required Address never made public. Name required. Follow Following. Abel suggested that the large, central nasal cavity for the trunk in the skull might have been interpreted as a large single eye-socket. Given the inexperience of the locals with living elephants, they were unlikely to recognize the skull for what it actually was. White hellebore, a herbal medicine described by Hippocrates before BC, contains the alkaloids cyclopamine and jervine, which are teratogens capable of causing cyclopia and holoprosencephaly, severe birth defects in which a fetus can be born with a single eye.
Students of teratology have raised the possibility of a link between this developmental deformity in infants and the myth for which it was named. Regardless of the connection between the herb and the birth abnormalities, it is possible these rare birth defects may have contributed to the myth.
Using phylogenetics tools, Julien d'Huy has reconstructed the history of the versions of Polyphemus back to the Paleolithic. The cyclops is generally described as a one-eyed monster possessing a huge body and, sometimes, fearsome tusks. As the skin is usually shown to be tough enough to protect them from the ancient Greek bronze weapons and arrows, the eye is sometimes the only weak spot of a cyclops.
Sharp claws, pointy ears, either fat or muscular bodies and one or more horns are not uncommon in modern sources, most likely to make them more monstrous than their mythological counterparts.
The size of the adult cyclops can vary by source, but as primordial beings, they are usually depicted to be much larger than regular humans, mostly more than twice the size of the human average, and even larger than gigantes sometimes.
The tusk size, if such are present, is usually compared to the dwarf elephant's or, in modern fiction, to a sharper version of the African elephant's. The cyclops' weapon of choice seems to be the most common blunt ones, such as a large wooden club, giant ax, trees and even large rocks. Although the cyclopes are usually shown to have human-like faces, with humanoid noses, beard and hair, they are sometimes shown to have different features, such as having no hair of any kind and having snake-like snouts.
As a result of their large size they are prone to sloth and apathy, most of the race being quite neutral. However, they can be inspired to ferocious action when angered, and are even considered entirely evil by some sources. When cyclopes do attack, it is usually on a very unsophisticated, devastating way, using their brute force to smash and mutilate their enemies. Their intelligence varies by source and kind, but are mostly shown as semi-sapient creatures, being treated as animals and domesticated by more intelligent races, being used both as tools of work and weapons.
Sometimes they are docile to those who feed them, although many are described to have a liking for the meat of sentient beings, mostly humans and satyrs. Post by mwh » Sun Jan 14, am This makes me think that the Cyclops story may be a pre-existing popular folk story about a trickster figure perhaps Odysseus that Homer has incorporated into his epic along with other stories.
Post by Paul Derouda » Sun Jan 14, pm The folk-tale is so widespread that it's unlikely that all of them are derived from the Odyssey. A short treatment can conveniently be found in West's Making of the Odyssey. It's a bit lame though to refer to West all the time, since here at least he is basically summarizing what others have found long before him.
Page treats the question in his book about the Odyssey, although I can't share all his conclusions he's a very stern old school analyst and he has also written a book on folktales in Homer, which I've read but don't remember much about.
An important work that compares the different versions in different traditions was written over hundred years by Hackman also a Finn, more or less, despite his name , but I haven't read it. They manufacture thunderbolts for Zeus; they're not shepherds. Doesn't this strongly suggest that "Homer" appropriated pre-existing legends about one-eyed monsters, and shaped it to the story-line of the Odyssey motivating Poseidon's nearly implacable opposition to Odysseus?
If that's the case, then perhaps the blinding is "Homer's" invention. West doesn't bracket Theogony or He notes that some have suspected , but he defends those lines. Post by Paul Derouda » Sun Jan 14, pm Hylander wrote: Doesn't this strongly suggest that "Homer" appropriated pre-existing legends about one-eyed monsters, and shaped it to the story-line of the Odyssey motivating Poseidon's nearly implacable opposition to Odysseus? It has long been recognized that the story is a folk-tale, one recorded in numerous versions from all over Europe as well as Syria, Turkey, Armenia, the Caucasus, Turkestan, Mongolia, and north Africa.
The essence of it is that a small group of men enter the dwelling of a one-eyed giant. He seizes, cooks, and eats them one after the another. When he falls asleep the last survivor drives a spit or a stake into his eye and blinds him. But escape is problematic, as the exit is blocked by a massive stone. The giant opens it a little to let his sheep out. Some of the versions undoubtedly derive from the Odyssey or have been modified under its influence, but that cannot be true of them all.
This was not a story invented by a Greek epic poet, nor can it have originated in Greece; it is of a quite different character from the normal run of Greek myths.
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