Polyphemus The Cyclops

In the painting “The Cyclops” the setting has no bright colors it has dark brown and some areas in which is pitch black. The room is lit up by a fireplace with Polyphemus’s sheep and vase around the corner of the picture, it was clear that this was in Polyphemus’s cave. Polyphemus is asleep with wine spilling out on the ground next to him it was apparent that he was passed out drunk. Odysseus and some of his crew members were scaling the wall with a big stick going towards Polyphemus’s head. It was clear that this painting was visualizing Odysseus’s plan to blind the Cyclops. ‘“I went up and chopped at length about a fathom, / and handed it over to my companions and told them to shave it/ down, and they made it smooth, while I stand by them

sharpened/ the point, then put it over the fire to harden”’ (9, 325-328). The big stick that was in the picture was the olive wood that Odysseus and his men had made from the olive wood that had been lying around in the cave. “He spoke and slumped away and fell on his back and lay there/ with his thick neck crooked over on one side, and sleep who subdues all/ came on and captured him, and the wine gurgled up from his gullet/ with gobs of human meat. This was his drunken vomiting” (9, 371-375). Odysseus had subdued Polyphemus by getting him drunk that way they could overpower him without damage being done to him or his crew members. This shows one of Odysseus’s many powers, being smart. He needed to be able to devise a plan that would actually outsmart the Cyclops who had entrapped them. The gullet where the wine was in it is on the ground part spilled which was the sign for Odysseus and some of his crew to go and initiate the plan to stab Polyphemus in the eye. This episode and the creation of this painting occurred because Polyphemus’s hospitality wasn’t acceptable, he killed two of Odysseus’s men and entrapped Odysseus and the rest of his men. Although the picture doesn’t depict the hero’s flaw it gave life to how hubris he is.