Cyclopes, one-eyed giants

CALLIMACHUS, HYMNS, Hymn to Artemis, translated by A. W. MAIR

[1] Artemis we hymn – no light thing is it for singers to forget her – whose study is the bow and the shooting of hares and the spacious dance and sport upon the mountains; beginning with the time when sitting on her father’s knees – still a little maid – she spake these words to her sire: “Give me to keep my maidenhood, Father, forever: and give me to be of many names, that Phoebus may not vie with me. And give me arrows and a bow – stay, Father, I ask thee not for quiver or for mighty bow: for me the Cyclopes will straightway fashion arrows and fashion for me a well-bent bow.

[46] And straightway she went to visit the Cyclopes. Them she found in the isle of Lipara – Lipara in later days, but at the at time its name was Meligunis – at the anvils of Hephaestus, standing round a molten mass of iron. For a great work was being hastened on: they fashioned a horse-trough for Poseidon. And the nymphs were affrighted when they saw the terrible monsters like unto the crags of Ossa: all had single eyes beneath their brows, like a shield of fourfold hide for size, glaring terribly from under; and when they heard the din of the anvil echoing loudly, and the great blast of the bellows and the heavy groaning of the Cyclopes themselves. For Aetna cried aloud, and Trinacia cried, the seat of the Sicanians, cried too their neighbour Italy, and Cyrnos therewithal uttered a mighty noise, when they lifted their hammers above their shoulders and smote with rhythmic swing the bronze glowing from the furnace or iron, labouring greatly. Wherefore the daughters of Oceanus could not untroubled look upon them face to face nor endure the din in their ears. No shame to them! On those not even the daughters of the Blessed look without shuddering. Though long past childhood’s years. But when any of the maidens doth disobedience to her mother, the mother calls the Cyclopes to her child – Arges or Steropes; and from within the house comes Hermes, stained with burnt ashes. And straightway he plays bogey to the child, and she runs into her mother’s lap, with her hands upon her eyes. But thou, Maiden, even earlier, while yet but three years old, when Leto came bearing thee in her arms at the bidding of Hephaestus that he might give thee handsel and Brontes set thee on his stout knees – thou didst pluck the shaggy hair of his great breast and tear it out by force. And even unto this day the mid part of his breast remains hairless, even when mange settles on a man’s temples and eats the hair away. Therefore right boldly didst thou address them then: “Cyclopes, for me too fashion ye a Cydonian bow and arrows and a hollow casket for my shafts; for I also am a child of Leto, even as Apollo. And if I with my bow shall slay some wild creature or monstrous beast, that shall the Cyclopes eat.” So didst thou speak and they fulfilled thy words.

HESIOD, THEOGONY, translated by H. G. EVELYN-WHITE

[139] And again, she bare the Cyclopes, overbearing in spirit, Brontes, and Steropes and stubborn-hearted Arges, who gave Zeus the thunder and made the thunderbolt: in all else they were like the gods, but one eye only was set in the midst of their fore-heads. And they were surnamed Cyclopes (Orb-eyed) because one orbed eye was set in their foreheads. Strength and might and craft were in their works.

[147] And again, three other sons were born of Earth and Heaven, great and doughty beyond telling, Cottus and Briareos and Gyes, presumptuous children. From their shoulders sprang an hundred arms, not to be approached, and each had fifty heads upon his shoulders on their strong limbs, and irresistible was the stubborn strength that was in their great forms. For of all the children that were born of Earth and Heaven, these were the most terrible, and they were hated by their own father from the first. And he used to hide them all away in a secret place of Earth so soon as each was born, and would not suffer them to come up into the light: and Heaven rejoiced in his evil doing. But vast Earth groaned within, being straitened, and she made the element of grey flint and shaped a great sickle, and told her plan to her dear sons.

[498] And he set free from their deadly bonds the brothers of his father, sons of Heaven whom his father in his foolishness had bound. And they remembered to be grateful to him for his kindness, and gave him thunder and the glowing thunderbolt and lightening: for before that, huge Earth had hidden these. In them he trusts and rules over mortals and immortals.

HOMER, THE ODDYSEY, book 1, translated by IAN JOHNSTON

[90] But Earthshaker Poseidon is a stubborn god, constantly enraged about the Cyclops, the one whose eye Odysseus destroyed, godlike Polyphemus, the mightiest of all the Cyclopes. Thoosa bore him, a nymph, a daughter of that Phorcys who commands the restless sea. Poseidon, down in those hollow caves, had sex with her. That’s the reason Earthshaker Poseidon makes Odysseus wander from his country. Still, he has no plans to kill him.

HOMER, THE ODDYSEY, book 9, translated by IAN JOHNSTON

[138] We sailed away from there with heavy hearts and reached the country of the Cyclopes, a crude and lawless people.1 They don't grow any plants by hand or plough the earth, but put their trust in the immortal gods, and though they never sow or work the land, every kind of crop springs up for them— wheat and barley and rich grape-bearing vines, and Zeus provides the rain to make them grow. They live without a council or assembly or any rule of law, in hollow caves among the mountain tops. Each one of them makes laws for his own wives and children, and they shun all dealings with each other

The Cyclopes (singular Cyclops) are hairy monsters, rather than people, with only one eye in the middle of their foreheads. They originated from the primal gods, Ouranus and Gaea, and had been imprisoned in Tartarus. But they helped Zeus in his fight against his father, Cronos, and Zeus freed them. Odysseus, one assumes, either doesn't know about the Cyclopes before this adventure or is not aware he is about to meet one, since he assumes he's moving into a place where the laws of hospitality apply. Most geographical interpretations place the incident with the Cyclops in Sicily. We learn later that the Cyclops Odysseus meets has a name (Polyphemus) and is, along with his neighbours, a son of Poseidon.

[152] “Now, near the country of the Cyclopes, outside the harbour, there's a fertile island, covered in trees, some distance from the shore, but not too far away. Wild goats live there in countless numbers. They have no need to stay away from any human trails. Hunters never venture there, not even those who endure great hardships in the forest, as they roam across the mountain peaks. That island has no flocks or plough land—through all its days it's never once been sown or tilled or known the work of human beings. The only life it feeds is bleating goats. The Cyclopes don't have boats with scarlet prows or men with skills to build them well-decked ships, which would enable them to carry out all sorts of things—like traveling to the towns

HYGINUS, ASTRONOMICA, Book 2, translated by MARY GRANT

[2.15.6] Eratosthenes says about the Arrow, that with this Apollo killed the Cyclopes who forged the thunderbolt by which Aesculapius died. Apollo had buried this arrow in the Hyperborean mountain, but when Jupiter pardoned his son, it was borne by the wind and brought to Apollo along with the grain which at that time was growing. Many point out that for this reason it is among the constellations

[2.39.1] ALTAR: On this altar the gods are thought to have first made offerings and formed an alliance when they were about to oppose the Titans. The Cyclopes made it. From this observance men established the custom that when they plan to do something, they make sacrifices before beginning the undertaking.

HYGINUS, FABULAE, translated by MARY GRANT

[49] AESCULAPIUS: Aesculapius, son of Apollo, is said to have restored life either to Glaucus, son of Minos, or to Hippolytus, and Jupiter because of this struck him with a thunderbolt. Apollo, not being able to injure Jupiter, killed the ones who had made the thunderbolt, that is, the Cyclopes. On account of this deed Apollo was given in servitude to Admetus, King in Thessaly.

NONNUS, DIONYSIACA, Book 2, translated by W. H. D. ROUSE

[339] I will break those constraining chains, and bring back the Titans to heaven, and settle under the same roof in the sky the Cyclopes, sons of Earth. I will make more weapons of fire; for I need many thunderbolts, because I have two hundred hands to fight with, not only a pair like Cronides.

[601] And when you have the underground Cyclopes domiciled in Olympos, make anew spark for an improved thunderbolt.

NONNUS, DIONYSIACA, Book 14, translated by W. H. D. ROUSE

[52] Battalions of Cyclopians came like a flood. In battle, these with weaponless hands cast hills for their stony spears, and their shields were cliffs; a peak from some mountain-ravine was their crested helmet, Sicilian sparks were their fiery arrows. They went into battle holding burning brands and blazing with light from the forge they knew so well – Brontes and Steropes, Euryalos and Elatreus, Arges and Trachios and proud Halimedes. One alone was left behind from the war, Polyphemos, tall as the clouds, so mighty and so great, the Earthshaker's own son; he was kept in his place by another love, dearer than war, under the watery ways, for he had seen Galateia half-hidden, and made the neighbouring sea resound as he pouredc out his love for a maiden in the wooing tones of his pipes.

NONNUS, DIONYSIACA, Book 27, translated by W. H. D. ROUSE

[83] Do not kill the Earthborn Cyclopeans who touch Olympos with their long limbs, do not transfix them with a spearpoint in belly or neck, let the heavy stroke of bronze pierce their one round eye. No, kill not the Cyclopeans of the earth, for I want them too: they shall sit in an Indian smithy! Brontes shall make me a heavyrumbling trumpet to mock the thunder's roar, that I may be an earthly Zeus; Steropes shall make here on earth a new rival lightning: I will try it in fighting against Satyrs, that Cronides may be jealous, and tear his heart yet more to see Deriades thundering and lightening — he shall fear the Indian chieftain hurling a newmade fiery thunderbolt!

NONNUS, DIONYSIACA, Book 28, translated by W. H. D. ROUSE

[172] Now the grim Cyclopes, allies of Zeus, surrounded the fighters. Argilipos lifted a shining torch and shed light on the throng through the dark clouds. He was armed with a firebarbed thunderbolt from the underworld, and fought with firebrands: the swarthy Indians trembled, amazed at that fire so like the heavenly firebursts. A champion all of fire he was, and the sparks of earthborn lightning showered upon the enemies' heads. The Cyclops conquered ashpikes and countless swords, shaking his hot missiles and his flashing points, with brands for his arrows: one upon another, countless, he burnt the Indian men with the blazing shafts, chastising with pretended thunderbolt not one Salmoneus alone, slaying not only one enemy of God; not one Euadne alone groaned, or only one Capaneus was scorched up. Steropes also was armed with a mimic lightning, which he brandished like the lightningflash of the sky, but an extinguishable brand, the child of Western flame, seed of Sicilian fire and that smoky forge; a dark pall covered it like a cloud, and beneath it he now hid the light, now showed it, in alternating movements, just like the flashes in the sky; for the lightning comes in flashes and goes again. Brontes also was in the battle, rattling a noisy tune with a din like rolling thunderclaps: he poured an earthborn shower of his own with strange drops falling through the air, and lasting but a moment — an unreal Zeus he was, with imitated raindrops and no clouds. Then leaving the artificial noise of this mock thunder, he armed himself with Sicilian steel against the enemy; swinging the iron hammer high over his shoulders he smashed many an enemy head, and struck the dusky ranks right and left, with a clang like the blows as if he were ever striking on the hammerbeaten anvil of Etna.

[201] Next he broke off a crag from a farspreading rock, and rushed upon Deriades with this stony spear. He hurled the huge rock with merciless hand against the blackskin king who stood ready, and struck his hairy chest with its rocky point. The king was wholly staggered with the heavy blow of this huge millstone full on his chest, like a drunken man; but Hydaspes rescued his stricken son from death. The bold king, crushed by the blow, dropt the furious spear from his never-tiring hands, the twentycubit spear of bronze, and threw his shield on the ground out of his shamed grasp, with little breath left in him; struck on the round of his breast by the pointed stone, he fell down headlong out of his lofty car like a tall highcrested firtree, which falling encompasses a vast space of wide earth. The Indians crowded round him and lifted him into the car, fearing that the ugly Cyclops might get another crag of some lofty hill and throw again, and slay their king with the rough missile — for he was as tall as highcrested Polyphemos." In the middle of this grim champion's forehead glared the light of one single round eye; the blackskin Indians shook with wonder and fear when they saw the eye of the grim Cyclops; they thought Olympian Selene must have come down from the sky and risen in the earth-born Cyclops's face, shining with her full orb, to defend Lyaios.

[230] Father Zeus, seeing how the Cyclops imitated his own noise, laughed on high in the clouds that the earth was then flooded with a strange kind of shower from earthclouds upon its bosom, a new experience, while the thirsty air had no downpour through its bare dry expanse. Trachios also reared his head: and Elatreus, marching beside his brother, held and shook a shield like a towering crag, and held a long firtree high in the clouds, sweeping off the enemies' heads with his treespear. Euryalos reared his head. He cut off a large body of fugitives in the battle, away from the plain and down towards the sea, shutting the Indian companies into the fishgiving gulf; so he conquered his foes over the lancebearing main as he thrust his twentycubit blade through the water. Then with long poleaxe he split off a rock near the brine, and threw it at his adversaries; many then felt the threads of Fate in double fashion without burial, struck with the jagged missile, and brinedrowned in watery strife.Another Cyclops of the tribe went raging and scattering his foes, the prime warrior Halimedes, a monster with towering limbs; guarding himself he held before his great round eye a bossy oxhide shield. Then Phlogios the avenger of the slain Indians saw him; he rounded his bow, and drew back the windswift shaft to pierce the eye in that forehead — and he would have done it, but as he aimed, the highheaded Cyclops saw the coming attack, and dodged the blow of the flying arrow by shifting aside. Then the other poised a rock and threw the rough missile at Phlogios; but he retreated and stood by the car of oxhorned Deriades, and thus just evaded the sharp stone flying through the air, and there he remained. But Halimedes, angry that Phlogios had retreated, opened his deadly throat, and with one loud roar slew twelve men by pouring out one man-destroying boom of his furious voice.

[269] The warcries of the Cyclopes made Olympos ring with their terrible sounds; and the dancers of battle, the Dictaian Corybants, joined in the battle. Damneus fought and pursued the enemy tribes. ... On the plain the warcry sounded. Prymneus succoured the excited Bacchant women, like a fair wind which blows astern and saves the mariner riding with the gales; full welcome he came to the army, as Polydeuces brings calm to buffeted ships when he puts to sleep the heavy billows of the galebreeding sea. Ocythoos with light quick step scared away the warriors. Many he slew with speedy fate, bringing down one with spear in stand-up fight, one with a shot at a distant view, cutting down another with horrid knife; another still running onwards and flying like to the breezes the furious pursuer caught, plying his knees and feet quick as the wind — as good a runner as Iphiclos, who used to skim the untrodden calm only touching the surface with the soles of his feet, and passed over a field of corn without bending the tops of the ears with his travelling footsteps. Ocythoos was like him windfooted.

NONNUS, DIONYSIACA, Book 29, translated by W. H. D. ROUSE

[344] Sing a hymn yourself to Aphrodite united with fiery Hephaistos! Set foot in Sicily, put your prayer, if you please, to the Cyclopes standing by their forge. They are in the secrets of Hephaistos the master craftsman, they can rival his clever work; they will invent an artifice for you and make a later imitation of your net, that you too may smother them both in galling meshes, and fasten the thief of your marriage in avenging toils, and bind limpfoot Hephaistos to Aphrodite. Then all the gods of Olympos will applaud you, when you have caught the ravisher of your bed in those bonds.

NONNUS, DIONYSIACA, Book 37, translated by W. H. D. ROUSE

[104] He kept the people there, and marked out a wide space for games with the goal for a chariot-race. There was on the ground a stone of a fathom's width, rounded into a half-circle, like the moon, well smoothed on its two sides, such as an old craftsman has fashioned and rounded with industrious hands wishing to make the statue of a god. A giant Cyclops lifted this in his hands and set it in the earth for a stone turning-post, and fixed another like it at the opposite end. There were various prizes, cauldron, tripod, shields, horses, silver, Indian jewels, cattle, Pactolian silt."

NONNUS, DIONYSIACA, Book 39, translated by W. H. D. ROUSE

[218] Troops of Cyclopians navigated the sea, showering rocks from the shore upon the ships; Euryalos shouted the warcry, and Halimedes high as the sky dashed raging into battle with brineblustering tumult. In both armies the sea-battle roared after the conflict on land, while Indian ships charged Bacchic ships with brineblustering yells. There was carnage on both sides, and the waves boiled with gore; a great company fell from both armies, the back of the blue sea grew red with newly-shed blood.

[275] " Bacchos my friend, how many Cyclopians you have brought into your war, and left only one far from the battle! Your conflict has lasted through many cycles, seven years, feeding the varying hopes of endless strife, because all the foremost champions of your great contest lack one, Polyphemos the invincible. If my son the Cyclops had come to your conflict, and brandished the prong of my trident, his father's, then indeed as the ally of Dionysos he would have pierced the chest of horned Deriades on this field — he would have destroyed a great and terrible host with my threetooth, and slain the whole Indian nation in one day!

NONNUS, DIONYSIACA, Book 41, translated by W. H. D. ROUSE

[263] Then Cypris saw her: pregnant with prophetic intelligence she sent her imagination wandering swiftly round, and driving her mind to wander about the whole earth surveyed the foundations of the brilliant cities of ancient days. She saw how Mycene girt about with a garland of walls by the Cyclopian masons took the name of twinkle-eye Mycene;

PAUSANIAS, DESCRIPTIONS OF GREECE, Book 2, translated by W. H. S. JONES

[2.2.1] ...There is also an ancient sanctuary called the altar of the Cyclopes, and they sacrifice to the Cyclopes upon it.

[2.16.5] It was jealousy which caused the Argives to destroy Mycenae. For at the time of the Persian invasion the Argives made no move, but the Mycenaeans sent eighty men to Thermopylae who shared in the achievement of the Lacedaemonians. This eagerness for distinction brought ruin upon them by exasperating the Argives. There still remain, however, parts of the city wall, including the gate, upon which stand lions. These, too, are said to be the work of the Cyclopes, who made for Proetus the wall at Tiryns.

[2.20.7] Beside the sanctuary of Cephisus is a head of Medusa made of stone, which is said to be another of the works of the Cyclopes.

[2.25.8] Going on from here and turning to the right, you come to the ruins of Tiryns...The wall, which is the only part of the ruins still remaining, is a work of the Cyclopes made of unwrought stones, each stone being so big that a pair of mules could not move the smallest from its place to the slightest degree. Long ago small stones were so inserted that each of them binds the large blocks firmly together.

VALERIUS FLACCUS, ARGONAUTICA, Book 1, translated by J. H. MOZLEY

[574] Meantime fierce Boreas from his eyrie in Pangaeus spied the sails set to the wind in the midst of the deep, and straightway turns his rapid course to Aeolia and the Tyrrhene caves. Every forest groans beneath the speeding wings of the god, the crops are laid, and the sea darkens beneath his hurtling flight. There stands in the Sicilian sea on the side of retreating Pelorum a crag, the terror of the straits; high as are the piles it lifts into the air, even so deep are those that sink below the surface of the waters. Hard by may one see another land with rocks and caverns no less terrible; in the former dwell Acamas and naked Pyragmon, the latter is the home of squalls and winds and shipwrecking storms;

STATIUS, THEBAID, Book 2, translated by J. H. MOZLEY

[269] The Lemnian, so they of old believed, long time distressed at Mars’ deceit and seeing that no punishment gave hindrance to the disclosed amour, and the avenging chains removed not the offence, wrought this for Harmonia on her bridal day to be the glory of her dower. Thereat, through taught mightier tasks, the Cyclopes labour, and the Telchines famed for their handiwork helped in friendly rivalry of skill; but for himself the sweat of toil was heaviest. There forms he a circlet of emeralds glowing with a hidden fire, and adamant stamped with figures of ill omen, and Gorgon eyes, and embers left on the Sicilian anvil from the last shaping of a thunderbolt, and the crests that shine on the heads of green serpents; then the dolorous fruit of the Hesperides and the dread gold of Phrixus’ fleece;

VIRGIL, AENEID, Book 8, translated by A. S. KLINE

[416] An island, its rocks smoking, rises steeply by the Sicilian coast, near the flanks of Aeolian Lipare. Beneath it a cave, and the galleries of Etna, eaten at by the Cyclopean furnaces, resound, and the groans from the anvils are heard echoing the heavy blows, and masses of Chalybean steel hiss in the caverns, and fire breathes through the furnaces. It is Vulcan's home and called Vulcania. Here then the god with the power of fire descended from the heavens. In the huge cave the Cyclopes, Brontes, Steropes, and bare-limbed Pyrcamon, were forging iron. They held a lightning-bolt, shaped with their hands,like many of those the Father hurls from all overthe sky, part of it polished, part still left to do. They'd added three shafts of spiralling rain, three of watery cloud, three of reddening fire, and the winged south wind. now they were blending terrifying flashes, into the work, sounds and fears, and fury with following flames. Elsewhere they pressed on with a chariot for Mars, with winged wheels, with which he rouses men, with which he rouses cities: and a chilling aegis, the breastplate of Pallas, competing to burnish its serpent scales of gold, its interwoven snakes, and the Gorgon herself on the goddess's breast, with severed neck and rolling eyes: 'Away with all this,' he shouts, 'remove the work you've started, Cyclopes of Etna, and turn your minds to this: you're to make arms for a brave hero. Now you need strength, swift hands now, all the art now of a master. An end to delay.' He said no more, but they all bent quickly to the toil, and shared the labour equally. Bronze and golden ore flowed in streams, and steel, that deals wounds, melted in a vast furnace. They shaped a giant shield, one to stand against all the weapons of Latium, layering it seven times, disc on disc. Some sucked in air and blew it out again with panting bellows, others dipped the hissing bronze in the lake: the cavern groaned beneath the weight of anvils. With mighty force they lifted their arms together in rhythm, and turned the mass of metal, gripping it with pincers.