38 pages • 1 hour read
Cyclops
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary
Background
Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Character Analysis
Themes
Symbols & Motifs
Important Quotes
Essay Topics
Tools
BetaThemes
The Uses of Language
Language and its uses is a prominent theme in many of the works of Euripides, who was known even in antiquity for his keen interest in rhetoric and sophistry. The ways characters in Cyclops—Odysseus, Silenus, and Polyphemus—use language over the course of the play contributes to their characterizations and comments on the role of communication in society more broadly.
Odysseus, as in other works of Greek literature, is a trickster figure noted for his cunning. He holds off on revealing his identity until the very end, showing that he is calculating and able to anticipate dangers that may arise from being too forthcoming (though the purpose of his concealing his name in the Odyssey is ultimately lost in Euripides’s adaptation of the story). He shows himself as rhetorically adept in his agon (debate scene) with the Cyclops, though his carefully crafted arguments about piety and virtue are doomed to fall flat with the impious and uncivilized Cyclops. This misjudgment of his audience is part of the play’s mockery of the elevated genre from which Odysseus hails—the juxtaposition of epic concerns about fate and free will, which typically accompany discussion of what is owed to the gods, here comically meets an earthy and uncultured listener, whose interest in the gods mostly lies in Zeus cosplay.
Silenus also exploits the deceptive potential of language, though his lies are more blatantly self-serving than those of Odysseus. In his prologue speech, he misrepresents himself and his services to Dionysus, in particular by exaggerating his role in the war between the gods and the Giants—he claims to have killed Enceladus, but other accounts of the battle make it clear that Athena killed this Giant. When Odysseus and his men arrive on the island, Silenus does not immediately reveal the danger that the Cyclops represents to them, though he is well aware of it. Later, when the Cyclops catches him in the act of trading his sheep and cheeses to Odysseus’s men in exchange for wine, Silenus lies to save his skin, accusing Odysseus of trying to rob and abduct the Cyclops, and even urging the Cyclops to eat the Greeks. Later, when Odysseus is getting the Cyclops drunk, Silenus steals wine for himself. The error of using deception in such a short-sighted way becomes clear when we see Silenus’s ultimate fate—becoming the sexual plaything for Polyphemus.
The Cyclops, a blunt and low-brow speaker, uses language to bluster. He boasts of his strength and places himself above the gods. He takes pride in his self-sufficiency, though Euripides’s audience would have laughed at his understanding of this word—an uncivilized creature who does not know how to make wine, build a house, or farm, the Cyclops is less self-sufficient and more reliant on serendipity to survive. In the end, Polyphemus’s braggadocio is useless; he is blinded, bested by the craft and guile of Odysseus.
The Relationship between Gods, Mortals, and Mythical Creatures
Worship of the Greek pantheon was an important aspect of ancient Greek life, and the play reflects this importance. It is telling that none of the characters have a completely unproblematic relationship with the gods. In part, this is part and parcel of the lampoon quality of satyr drama, which by design ridicules a figure from classical mythology that was as old to Euripides’s audiences as Shakespeare is to modern readers. But the characters are also punished for their failings, each in their own way, perhaps suggesting that the gods watch over mortal affairs even when they do not make an in-person appearance (unlike in many of Euripides’s tragedies, no gods appear on stage in Cyclops).
Of the three characters of the play, the Cyclops Polyphemus’s attitude towards the gods is most hubristic, exhibiting the kind of disregard and disrespect that tends to get mortals punished in mythology. The Cyclops declares that not gods but “Money’s the wise man’s religion” (316) and views himself as equal to a god. Indeed, he expresses no interest in honoring the gods of the Greek pantheon, mocking the rites owed to the gods: “As for sacrifices, I make mine, / Not to some other gods, but to the greatest / Of all: me and my belly!” (334-36)
Polyphemus does concede the power of his father Poseidon, but only superficially, and seemingly only to furnish further proof of his own divinity and divine descent. He attacks the power of Zeus, the supreme god of the Greeks, on more than one occasion—most notably when he enacts the sexual relationship between Zeus and Ganymede by raping Silenus. And because he believes the gods have no power over him, he feels no scruples in flouting the laws set down by the gods, such as the law of giving hospitality to strangers. Interestingly, the Cyclops never reconsiders his views. Even when Odysseus exposes the limits of his power by blinding him, all he does is recall the prophecy about how Odysseus will suffer for hurting him, a prophecy that provides further support for his self-importance.
Odysseus, on the other hand, is outwardly pious. He makes prayers in the play to three major gods: Athena and Zeus in the first episode, and Hephaestus in the final episode. But Odysseus’s piety is rather superficial, as he concludes each of his prayers by declaring that he will stop believing in the gods if they do not help him. In the end, Odysseus shows himself as self-important as the Cyclops, boasting about blinding Polyphemus and not saying a word about the gods or any help they may have given him. The main feature of Odysseus’s possibly false piety is his misreading of his debate partner in the agon scene. Attempting to convince Polyphemus to let his men go, Odysseus appeals—as befits an epic hero and leader of men—to the Cyclops’ idea of divine justice and religious faith. However, Odysseus has misinterpreted his surroundings—he is no longer in Homer’s Odyssey but in a Greece four centuries in the future, where the lofty concerns of epic narrative read as high-falutin and are ignored.
Silenus and the Satyrs are a special case. They, like the Cyclopes, are mythical creatures, and thus do not belong to the ordinary, day-to-day world of human beings. In myth and iconography, the satyrs belong to the entourage of Dionysus, the god of wine. Fittingly, in Euripides’s play, the satyrs long to return to the bacchanalia of the god they love to serve. While this kind of worship seems self-serving for the chaotic, playful, and party-oriented satyrs, Silenus and the Chorus revere their god in a way that neither the Cyclops nor Odysseus do. They take joy in the worship of Dionysus and long to return to him throughout the play, and it is with pleasure that they return to having their orders “come from Bacchus” (709).
The Nature of Masculinity
Euripides’s Cyclops has often been read as a play about identity. One important feature of identity is masculinity—each of the play’s characters embodies a different aspect of this gender.
Odysseus most closely approximates the traits that a civilized man was supposed to have in Euripides’s time, displaying intelligence, piety, courage, and perseverance. To make his case for Polyphemus’s mercy, Odysseus demonstrates his ease with rhetoric and his dedication to upholding the faith. When the Cyclops interrupts his exchange with Silenus, Odysseus refuses to run away:
Many’s the time
I stood ten thousand Phrygians with my shield.
If die we must, then we must die with honor.
But if we live, we live with our old glory! (199-202).
However, Odysseus has little of the warrior instinct that would mark him as the ancient Greek ideal of masculine behavior—when faced with challenges, he uses his wiles to circumvent the danger rather than face it head-on. This tendency towards underhandedness connects him with Silenus, whose brand of masculinity positions him as a foil for the ancient Greek hero.
Like Odysseus, Silenus wants to be credited with amazing wartime feats, but his wild claims about his heroism in the battle between the gods and the Giants are clearly exaggeration, as his character is “weak” (432) and lacks self-control or self-restraint. The Chorus of satyrs, similarly, do not have the courage to help Odysseus blind the Cyclops; in Odysseus’s view, they are all “worthless cowards” (642). Silenus’s “inferior” masculinity is confirmed when he becomes Ganymede in Polyphemus’s drunken imagination—as the receiving partner in their nonconsensual sexual encounter, Silenus would have been confirmed for Euripides’s audience as effeminate and deficient in masculine bravado.
The Cyclops has the outward features of masculine accomplishment: His great strength and his bravado seemingly give license to do as he wishes. However, this power is not balanced by self-restraint, regard for the gods, or intelligence—key traits for a man in civilized society. Not only is Polyphemus mocked for his ignorance of viticulture and farming, but he is also demonstrated to be an inferior specimen of masculinity when he cannot handle his wine—while wine drinking was a mark of culture in ancient Greece, uncontrolled drunkenness was the sign of degeneracy.
Odysseus’s victory at the end establishes the superiority of the masculinity prized in contemporary Athenian society. Though his piety leaves something to be desired and his bluster is sometimes impulsively destructive, Odysseus is closest to the Athenian masculine ideal of the male audiences who would have watched the original performance of the play. However, the Cyclops and the satyrs ridicule negative aspects of Athenian identity: The Cyclops’ reference to wealth as a god is a dig at materialism, while the fun-loving satyrs embody the Dionysian context in which the play was performed. The play is a demonstration of admirable masculinity, as well as a critique of its weaknesses.
Unlock all 38 pages of this Study GuidePlus, gain access to 8,800+ more expert-written Study Guides.
Including features:
Related Titles
By Euripides
