Week 3 Reading Diary: Homer's Odyssey

As I choose monsters as one of my possible topic, I am interested in Cyclopes. The story can be focused on Cyclopes. The characteristic of Cyclopes are interesting and showed in the paragraph "The Cyclopes have no council meetings, no code of law, but live in echoing caves on the mountain slopes, and each man lays down the law to his wives and children, and disregards his neighbours."

The cyclopes are huge and strong. With their strength, they fear nothing but their own heart. It could be drawn from this quote. “Stranger, you are a foreigner or a fool, telling me to fear and revere the gods, since the Cyclopes care nothing for aegis-bearing Zeus: we are greater than they. I would spare neither you nor your friends, to evade Zeus’ anger, but only as my own heart prompted. But tell me, now, where you moored your fine ship, when you landed. Was it somewhere nearby, or further off? I’d like to know.”

The cyclopes are cruel but not as smart. Polyphemus believed in Odysseus lies so easily. He ate friends of Odysseus and although Odysseus offered him with his wine, all he did was to promise to eat Odysseus as last meal, he did not consider to spare him at all. Those were my words, and this his cruel answer: “Then, my gift is this. I will eat Nobody last of all his company, and all the others before him.”

I am interested in this creature called Cyclopes, and I am wondering what if the Cyclopes were smart, and elegant. They can be still strong and huge and still have one eye, but rather than cruel and stupid, they can be clever and generous.

(Mailbox Cyclopes by Mattew Ragan.)

 From Homer's Odyssey by Tony Kline