''Cyclops'' (, ''Kyklōps'') is an

ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

satyr play The satyr play is a form of Attic theatre performance related to both comedy and tragedy. It preserves theatrical elements of dialogue, actors speaking verse, a chorus that dances and sings, masks and costumes. Its relationship to tragedy is st ...

Euripides Euripides () was a Greek tragedy, tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to ...

, based closely on an episode from the ''

Odyssey The ''Odyssey'' (; ) is one of two major epics of ancient Greek literature attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest surviving works of literature and remains popular with modern audiences. Like the ''Iliad'', the ''Odyssey'' is divi ...

''. It is likely to have been the fourth part of a

tetralogy A tetralogy (from Greek τετρα- ''tetra-'', "four" and -λογία ''-logia'', "discourse") is a compound work that is made up of four distinct works. The name comes from the Attic theater, in which a tetralogy was a group of three tragedies ...

presented by Euripides in a dramatic festival in 5th Century BC Athens, although its intended and actual performance contexts are unknown. The date of its composition is unknown, but it was probably written late in Euripides' career. It is the only complete satyr play extant.

Plot

Actor as Papposilen Antikensammlung Berlin

The play is set in

Sicily Sicily (Italian language, Italian and ), officially the Sicilian Region (), is an island in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula in continental Europe and is one of the 20 regions of Italy, regions of Italy. With 4. ...

Mount Etna Mount Etna, or simply Etna ( or ; , or ; ; or ), is an active stratovolcano on the east coast of Sicily, Italy, in the Metropolitan City of Catania, between the cities of Messina, Italy, Messina and Catania. It is located above the Conve ...

. Silenus explains that he and his sons, the chorus, are slaves to the

Cyclops In Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, the Cyclopes ( ; , ''Kýklōpes'', "Circle-eyes" or "Round-eyes"; singular Cyclops ; , ''Kýklōps'') are giant one-eyed creatures. Three groups of Cyclopes can be distinguished. In Hesiod's ''Th ...

Polyphemus Polyphemus (; , ; ) is the one-eyed giant son of Poseidon and Thoosa in Greek mythology, one of the Cyclopes described in Homer's ''Odyssey''. His name means "abounding in songs and legends", "many-voiced" or "very famous". Polyphemus first ap ...

. The chorus enter with singing and sheep. Silenus tells them to stop singing and send the sheep into the cave because he can see a Greek ship by the coast and men coming to the cave. Odysseus enters with his men and asks where they can find water and if anyone will sell them food. Silenus questions Odysseus and Odysseus questions Silenus. On learning that he will probably be eaten if found, Odysseus is keen to leave. Silenus is keen to swap the Cyclops' food for Odysseus' wine. Silenus exits into the cave while the chorus talk to Odysseus. Silenus reenters with much food. The Cyclops enters and wants to know what is going on. Silenus explains that Odysseus and his men have beaten him and are taking the Cyclops' things and have threatened the Cyclops with violence. The Cyclops decides to eat them. Odysseus says that Silenus is lying, but the Cyclops believes Silenus. Odysseus tries to persuade the Cyclops not to eat them. The Cyclops is not persuaded. All but the chorus exit into the cave. The chorus sings until Odysseus enters from the cave and tells the chorus that the Cyclops has eaten some of his men and that he has been giving the Cyclops wine and that he intends to blind the Cyclops and save everyone, including the satyrs. The chorus is keen to help. The Cyclops exits from the cave singing and drunk and wanting more wine from Odysseus. The Cyclops wants to go and share with his brothers but is persuaded to stay. Silenus and the Cyclops drink wine until the Cyclops decides to take the now very appealing Silenus to bed, and the pair exit into the cave. The chorus affirm that they are ready to help Odysseus, but urge him to go in and help Silenus. Odysseus calls on

Hephaestus Hephaestus ( , ; wikt:Hephaestus#Alternative forms, eight spellings; ) is the Greek god of artisans, blacksmiths, carpenters, craftsmen, fire, metallurgy, metalworking, sculpture and volcanoes.Walter Burkert, ''Greek Religion'' 1985: III.2. ...

and

Hypnos In Greek mythology, Hypnos (; Ancient Greek: , 'sleep'), also spelled Hypnus, is the personification of sleep. The Roman equivalent is Somnus. His name is the origin of the word hypnosis. Pausanias (geographer), Pausanias wrote that Hypnos was t ...

then exits into the cave. The chorus sing. Odysseus enters from the cave and tells them to be quiet and come and help burn the eye out. The chorus excuse themselves. Odysseus suggests that they can at least offer encouragement. They agree to provide this and do provide this while Odysseus exits into the cave. The Cyclops enters from the cave with noise and blindness. The chorus mock him and direct him away from Odysseus and the others while they escape from the cave. Odysseus addresses the Cyclops before exiting toward his ship. The Cyclops says that he is going to smash the ship then exits into the cave, which is "pierced through" (ἀμφιτρῆτος). The chorus say that they will go with Odysseus and be slaves to Dionysus.

Analysis

Euripides is not the only ancient dramatist who wrote a Cyclops satyr play. Aristias of the early fifth century did also. But ''Cyclops'' is apparently the only thing which Euripides wrote with a particular Homeric foundation. Euripides' play combines the myth of Dionysus's capture by pirates with the episode in

Homer Homer (; , ; possibly born ) was an Ancient Greece, Ancient Greek poet who is credited as the author of the ''Iliad'' and the ''Odyssey'', two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature. Despite doubts about his autho ...

's ''

'' of

Odysseus In Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology, Odysseus ( ; , ), also known by the Latin variant Ulysses ( , ; ), is a legendary Greeks, Greek king of Homeric Ithaca, Ithaca and the hero of Homer's Epic poetry, epic poem, the ''Odyssey''. Od ...

' time with the cyclops

. Into this scenario Euripides thrust Silenus and the satyrs, comic characters. Athen Theatre of Dionysus BW 2017-10-09 14-29-49

The satyr play as a medium was generally understood as a "tragedy at play".O'Sullivan, P. (2016) ‘Cyclops’, in A Companion to Euripides. Hoboken, NJ, USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc, pp. 313–333. doi: 10.1002/9781119257530.ch22. It relied extensively on the multifarious connotations which surrounded the concepts of "playfulness (''paidia''), education (''paideia''), child (''pais''), slave (''pais''), playful (''paidikos''), and childishness (''paidia'')".Tarnopolsky, Christina. "The Event of Genre: Reading Plato's Republic through the Lens of Satyr-Play." Theory & Event 17, no. 1 (2014): N_A. In ''Cyclops'' Euripides employed "metapoetically loaded terms" like second and double and new to highlight interactions with his sources, familiar and foundational texts in Athenian education. The characters in ''Cyclops'' are not ignorant of Euripides' sources. "Silenus 'knows his ''Odyssey'' rather well'". Euripides' Cyclops knows about the Trojan War and gives Odysseus his opinion of it. By playing with metapoetic images throughout the play Euripides fostered "a collective consciousness" in his democratic audience and facilitated their recognition that cooperation was necessary throughout Athens if they were to overcome their enemies. Both the Homeric episode and Euripides' ''Cyclops'' are based on the blinding of the Cyclops.Vickers, Michael. Sophocles and Alcibiades : Athenian Politics in Ancient Greek Literature. Stocksfield .K. Acumen, 2008. p.85 It was almost certainly known by Euripides' audience that a particular Alcander had stuck a stick into the eye of

Lycurgus Lycurgus (; ) was the legendary lawgiver of Sparta, credited with the formation of its (), involving political, economic, and social reforms to produce a military-oriented Spartan society in accordance with the Delphic oracle. The Spartans i ...

the Spartan lawgiver. On one level of Euripides' play

Alcibiades Alcibiades (; 450–404 BC) was an Athenian statesman and general. The last of the Alcmaeonidae, he played a major role in the second half of the Peloponnesian War as a strategic advisor, military commander, and politician, but subsequently ...

thrusts a stake into the eye of "a gross caricature of a Spartan", expressing "a shift of political alliances ostensibly achieved by Alcibiades". Like Sophocles' ''Philoctetes'', Euripides' ''Cyclops'' made an appeal on behalf of Alcibiades that he be allowed to return from exile. Euripides also encouraged his audience to consider the recent Athenian enterprise against Sicily, which was undertaken for greed against an intractable and difficult enemy when Athens could barely provide money or men and which did not go well. The Homeric Polyphemus is brutish and alien to Odysseus and his crew. Euripides' Polyphemus is sophisticated and intellectually analogous to sophists of the fifth century. The influence of the

Sophist A sophist () was a teacher in ancient Greece in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Sophists specialized in one or more subject areas, such as philosophy, rhetoric, music, athletics and mathematics. They taught ''arete'', "virtue" or "excellen ...

s is manifest throughout Euripides' plays "not only in his rhetorical style but also in his skeptical, down‐to‐earth approach". In ''Cyclops'' both Odysseus and the Cyclops employ deft and appropriative rhetorical manipulation, "aggressive sophistry that reduces men to meat, and fine talk to deceptive barter".Worman, Nancy. "Odysseus, ingestive rhetoric, and Euripides' Cyclops." Helios, vol. 29, no. 2, 2002, p. 101+. Gale Academic OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A95966820/AONE?u=tou&sid=AONE&xid=5ad4a560. Accessed 8 Sept. 2020. Gluttonous ingestion is a theme and " e imagery of grotesque ingestion surfaces almost immediately in the play".Worman, Nancy. "Odysseus, ingestive rhetoric, and Euripides' Cyclops." Helios, vol. 29, no. 2, 2002, p. 101+. Gale Academic OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A95966820/AONE?u=tou&sid=AONE&xid=5ad4a560. Accessed 4 Sept. 2020. Euripides' Cyclops has been described as "a figure of proto- Rabelaisian excess" and linked to ideas contained in the work of

Mikhail Bakhtin Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (; rus, Михаи́л Миха́йлович Бахти́н, , mʲɪxɐˈil mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ bɐxˈtʲin; – 7 March 1975) was a Russian people, Russian philosopher and literary critic who worked on the phi ...

. Polyphemus "likes to talk, he likes to eat, ..to talk about eating, or to try to eat those who talk to him". The Cyclops and the satyrs continually refer to the Cyclops' belly and the satisfaction thereof. Interaction between Odysseus and the Cyclops is based on food and exchange. In the play the Cyclops suggests that people are the source of morality and not the gods. He says that he sacrifices only to his belly, the greatest of divinities. Such impiety was of substantial interest to Athenians in the fifth century.McClure, LK (ed.) 2017, A Companion to Euripides, John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, Somerset. pp. 521-22 Euripides often dealt with "the consequences of impiety". One facet of Greek religion was "to honor and placate the gods because they are powerful". The Athenians judicially punished philosophers and sophists. Euripides himself may have left Athens in "self-imposed exile". But in his play his Cyclops is punished for impiety by having his eye burned out. In Euripides' plays, "Characters might refuse to worship certain gods, blaspheme them, or even at times question the morality of the gods, but there is little evidence of what we would call atheism, a complete lack of belief in any god, in Greek thought". The location of the cyclopes in the ''Odyssey'' is not specified, but Euripides' ''Cyclops'' is set in

, possibly following

Epicharmus Epicharmus of Kos or Epicharmus Comicus or Epicharmus Comicus Syracusanus (), thought to have lived between c. 550 and c. 460 BC, was a Greek dramatist and philosopher who is often credited with being one of the first comedic writers, ...

, portrayed as barbarous and desolate and hostile.O'Sullivan, Patrick. "Cyclops". McClure, Laura. ''A Companion to Euripides''. John Wiley & Sons, 2017. . page 315. This was not an accurate representation of Sicily. But the point is that the place is "completely non-Bacchic" and "non-Dionysiac".Olson, S. Douglas. "Dionysus and the Pirates in Euripides' 'Cyclops'." Hermes 116, no. 4 (1988): 502-04. Accessed September 7, 2020. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4476660. This is mentioned by every character in the play. In ''Cyclops'' Polyphemus has captured and enslaved Silenus and a group of satyrs. The satyrs play an important role in driving the plot without any of them actually being the lead role, which, in the satyr play generally, was always reserved for a god or tragic hero (in this case Odysseus). According to Carl A. Shaw, the chorus of satyrs in a satyr play were "always trying to get a laugh with their animalistic, playfully rowdy, and, above all, sexual behavior." Satyrs were widely seen as mischief-makers who routinely played tricks on people and interfered with their personal property. They had insatiable sexual appetites and often sought to seduce or ravish both nymphs and mortal women alike (though not always successfully). A single elderly satyr named Silenus was believed to have been the tutor of Dionysus on Mount Nysa. After Dionysus grew to maturity, Silenus became one of his most devout followers and was perpetually drunk. The identity of satyrs is plastic and somewhat elusive, but a salient aspect in ''Cyclops'' is the "comic inversion of societal norms". They were overall "creatures that were funny and joyful, pleasing and delightful, feminine and masculine, but also cowardly and disgusting, pitiful and lamentable, terrifying and horrific". Satyrs were revered as semi-divine beings and companions of the god Dionysus. They were thought to possess their own kind of wisdom that was useful to humans if they could be convinced to share it. In ''Cyclops'' the chorus "claim to know an incantation of

Orpheus In Greek mythology, Orpheus (; , classical pronunciation: ) was a Thracians, Thracian bard, legendary musician and prophet. He was also a renowned Ancient Greek poetry, poet and, according to legend, travelled with Jason and the Argonauts in se ...

that will bring down a form of fiery destruction upon their enemy". When the satyrs identify the Cyclops as a "son of Earth" and present their firebrand as igniting the Cyclops' skull rather than his eye they mimic a traditional Orphic incantation and Zeus's punishment of the

Titans In Greek mythology, the Titans ( ; ) were the pre-Twelve Olympians, Olympian gods. According to the ''Theogony'' of Hesiod, they were the twelve children of the primordial parents Uranus (mythology), Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth). The six male ...

, the "sons of Earth" and primordial enemies of the Orphic Dionysus. The central focus of Orphism is the suffering and death of the god Dionysus at the hands of the Titans, which forms the basis of Orphism's central myth. In the play the satyrs are devotees of Dionysus and on the island of Sicily, known to be "a center of Orphic cult". ''Cyclops'' has been both lauded and scorned, with hostile commentators criticising its simplicity of plot and characterisation.Arnott, Peter D. "The Overworked Playwright A Study in Euripides' Cyclops." Greece and Rome 8, no. 2 (1961): 164-69. There is little agreement. According to critics the play is derived entirely from the Homeric episode or mostly from the Homeric episode, is an interrogator of Homeric and tragic portrayals, or "a rival version of a Homeric episode with new contemporary implications."

Translations

Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame durin ...

, 1819 (published 1824) – verse (full tex
at Google Books
or ) * Edward P. Coleridge, 1891 – prose (full tex

*

Arthur S. Way Arthur Sanders Way (13 February 1847 – 25 September 1930), was a classical scholar, translator and headmaster of Wesley College, Melbourne, Australia. Arthur Way, son of the Rev. William Way and his wife Matilda, ''née'' Francis, was b ...

, 1912 – verse * J. T. Sheppard, 1923 – verse *

William Arrowsmith William Ayres Arrowsmith (April 13, 1924 – February 21, 1992) was an American classicist, academic, and translator. Life Born in Orange, New Jersey, the son of Walter Weed Arrowsmith and Dorothy (Ayres) Arrowsmith, William grew up in Wellesle ...

, 1956 - verse *

Roger Lancelyn Green Roger Gilbert Lancelyn Green (2 November 1918 – 8 October 1987) was a British biographer and children's writer. He was an Oxford academic. He had a positive influence on his friend, C.S. Lewis, by encouraging him to publish ''The Lion, the ...

, 1957 – verse * David Kovacs, 1994 – prose (full tex
on Tufts Perseus
* Heather McHugh and David Konstan, 2001 – verse * George Theodoridis, 2008 – prose (full tex
at Bacchicstage Wordpress
* Patrick O'Sullivan and Christopher Collard, 2013 (full tex
on Academia.edu
* Brian Vinero, 2013: rhymed verse

References

{{Authority control Plays by Euripides Odysseus Mythological Sicilians Satyr plays Plays set in ancient Greece Plays set in Sicily Plays based on the Odyssey Silenus Polyphemus Mount Etna in fiction

Plot

Analysis

Translations

See also

References