children's books, editorial illustration
Cyclops
Eye
monotype print
There are countless stories about brave knights battling fierce monsters.
But although the hero might win the battle, his pride can make him foolish.
Legend has it that if one looks into the eye of the cyclops, in it's
reflection he will see his own death. And there is nothing that a proud
young hero fears more than death. The cyclops is described in Homer's
epic poem The Oddessey:
Far out, as far off shore as shouted words would carry, I sent a few
back to the adversary: "O Cyclops! Would you feast on my companions?
Puny am I, in a Caveman's hands? How do you like the beating that we
gave you, you damned cannibal? Eater of guests under your roof! Zeus
and the gods have paid you!"
The blind thing in his doubled fury broke a hilltop in his hands and
heaved it after us. Ahead of our black prow it struck and sank whelmed
in a spuming geyser, a giant wave that washed the ship stern foremost
back to shore. I got the longest boathook out and stood fending us off,
with furious nods to all to put their backs into a racing stroke--row,
row, or perish. So the long oars bent kicking the foam sternward, making
head until we drew away, and twice as far.
Now when I cupped my hands I heard the crew in low voices protesting:
"Godsake, Captain! Why bait the beast again? ...Give him our bearing
with your trumpeting, he'll get the range and lob a boulder." "Aye,
he'll smash our timbers and our heads together!" I would not heed them
in my glorying spirit, but let my anger flare and yelled: "Cyclops,
if ever mortal man inquire how you were put to shame and blinded, tell
him Odysseus, raider of cities, took your eye: Laertes son, whose home's
on Ithaca!"
At this he gave a mighty sob and rumbled: "Now comes the weird upon
me, spoken of old. A wizard, grand and wonderous, lived here--Telemos,
a son of Eurymos; great length of days he had in wizardry among the
Cyclopes, and these things he foretold for time to come: my great eye
lost, and at Odysseus's hands. Always I had in mind some giant, armed
in in giant force, would come against me here. But this, but you--small,
pitiful and twiggy-- you put me down with wine, you blinded me. Come
back, Odysseus, and I'll treat you well, praying the god of earthquake
to befriend you--his son I am, for he by his avowal fathered me, and,
if he will, he may heal me of this black wound--he and no other of all
the happy gods or mortal men." Few words I shouted in reply to him:
"If I could take your life I would and take your time away, and hurl
you down to hell! The god of earthquake could not heal you there!"
At this he stretched his hands out in his darkness toward the sky of
stars, and prayed Poseidon: "O hear me, lord, blue girdler of the islands,
if I am thine indeed, and thou art father: grant that Odysseus, raider
of cities, never see his home: Laertes son, I mean, who kept his hall
on Ithaca. Should destiny intend that he shall see his roof again, among
his family in hs father land, far be that day, and dark the years between.
Let him lose all companions, and return under strange sail to bitter
days at home." In these words he prayed, and the god heard him.
Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. by Robert Fitzgerald. Doubleday & Co., Inc., Garden City, New York, 1961. pp. 171-173.
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