Cyclops. Could there have been a Cyclopean civilization?

They are full of stories about immortal chthonic monsters that inhabited the world even before the Olympic gods began to rule over the world.

Mother Earth Gaia gave birth to them in great numbers. Titans, hundred-armed giants, hecatoncheirs, sea giants, cyclops.

Little is known about the latter, despite being mentioned in Homer's greatest work, The Odyssey. And all because numerous sources give different versions of the origin of these ferocious one-eyed giants.

The name Cyclops comes from ancient Greek and means "round-eyed", since the giants were distinguished by a feature - they had only one spherical eye in the middle of the face.

Cyclopes - children of Gaia

According to Hesiod, the immortal giants of the Cyclopes, or Cyclopes, gave birth to Gaia, their father was Uranus. There were three brothers - Arg ("shining"), Bront ("thunder") and Sterop ("sparkling").

Uranus, seeing the ugly appearance of his children, got angry and threw them into Tartarus, from where they were released by Kron to fight with their common father. But he also imprisoned them in underworld after the overthrow of Uranus, from where he released them already on the advice of Gaia.

The Cyclopes were not like the mindless, cruel and greedy for flesh giants described by Homer.

The children of Gaia possessed blacksmithing skills, had dexterity, strength and power sufficient to forge Zeus an invincible weapon for the battle with Kron and the titans - lightning, thunder and thunderbolts.

Also, according to legend, they created a trident, Hades - an invisibility helmet, and Artemis, the patroness of hunting, a silver bow and arrows.

Hephaestus and they taught crafts, the patrons of which these gods later became.

After the Olympian gods came to power over the earth, these titans remained to serve the new gods, worked in the forge of Hephaestus, helped the god of fire, forged the weapons of the gods.

According to the most popular legend, he killed them, being upset by the death of his son Asclepius.

After all, it was with the thunderbolt created by the Cyclopes that Zeus struck down the future god of medicine.

Cyclopes in the Odyssey

Despite the similarity in appearance, the Homeric Cyclopes are not similar to their divine counterparts, first of all, in character traits and way of life.

Homer describes whole island, inhabited by greedy, rude and ferocious one-eyed monsters. He also had a divine origin, Polyphemus was the son of Poseidon and the nymph Phoosa.

A whole people lived on the island, but the round-eyed giants did not communicate with each other, they lived in deep, dark, scary caves and engaged in sheep breeding.

Their whole life on the island revolves around getting their own food. They are not interested in world events, so Polyphemus is not aware of a major ten-year war with, they do not comply with the laws of hospitality, seeing in visitors only a means of subsistence.

They have no aspirations for knowledge and development, no culture, they are not interested in sciences and arts.

Thus, Homer contrasts the educated, flexible mind Odysseus with the stupid, striving only for enrichment, inert Polyphemus, showing that such creatures have no future, they will always be deceived by those who strive for something more - for fame, for education, for love. .

And the fact that Polyphemus is of divine origin and incredibly superior in bodily power to the hero only enhances this contrast.

Homer shows that heroes can defy the divine, at the expense of powerful mental strength.

Polyphemus, in a fit of blind rage, kills the young man, and Galatea turns him into a river. beautiful legend, but even here the Cyclops acts as an antagonist, as an evil creature, contrary to the bright feeling of love.

Children of Poseidon

There is a version that the Cyclopes were born together with Gaia by her son Poseidon, wanting to remove Zeus from the throne, who was inferior to the god of the seas in the right to inherit the throne.

He did not want to know that the other gods supported the wiser Zeus, did not want to see Poseidon on the throne because of his violent temper and impatience.

While Poseidon was waiting for the birth of his children, Zeus arranged the world, including creating people together. And when the Cyclopes appeared, powerful, ferocious, unprincipled and not striving for good, who only know how to destroy and kill, Poseidon compared them with the world created by Zeus.

I saw beautiful people herding horses and cows, loving friend friend building beautiful dwellings. And then the god of the seas realized that he could not be compared in creativity with his brother.

He sent the Cyclopes to a small island, where he left them to live, and he himself went to the abyss of the seas.

Cyclopes symbolize the extreme degree of unreasonableness of the forces of nature, capable of destroying everything for no reason. But there is no creativity in them, and therefore there is no future.

Cyclopes (Cyclopes) (from the Greek κύκλος - "round" and όψις - "eye" - "round-eyed") - in ancient Greek mythology one-eyed giants.
According to legend, the Cyclopes are three one-eyed giants, children of Uranus (heaven) and Gaia (earth). Their names were Arg (from the Greek Ἄργης - "shining"), Bront (from the Greek Βρόντης - "Thunderous") and Sterop (from the Greek Στερόπης - "sparkling").

The Cyclopes had a very difficult fate - immediately after birth they were tied up and thrown by their father to Tartarus - deepest abyss. They languished there until Uranus was overthrown by the titans - the brothers of the Cyclopes, and the latter were released. However, for a short time, the Cyclopes were again shackled in tartar by Kronos (Chronos) - a titan, the keeper of time, to whom death from his own children was prophesied by Gaia. Therefore, Kronos swallowed all his children after birth. The wife of Kronos, the titanide Rhea, did not want to give her children to Kronos anymore, so when Zeus was born, she planted a stone instead of the newborn, which Kronos swallowed and did not notice anything.

Having matured and strengthened, Zeus begins a struggle with his father Kronos for power. On the advice of Gaia, Zeus brings back the Cyclopes from Tartarus to help him in his fight. The Cyclopes came to the aid of the Olympian gods in the war against Kronos and the Tinans.

The giants forged thunder, lightning and thunderbolts for Zeus, which he threw into the titans. They forged a helmet for Hades, a trident for Poseidon, taught Athena and Hephaestus the crafts.

Kronos (Kr o n o z) · one of the titans, the son of Uranus and Gaia. At the instigation of his mother, he castrated Uranus with a sickle made of durable metal or even diamond in order to stop his endless fertility. After that, the titans became the supreme beings in space. The time when Cronus was "lord of the sky" was the golden age of mythological history. People in those days lived like gods, "with a calm and clear soul, not knowing grief, not knowing labors," according to Hesiod.

Having reigned instead of his father, Kron took his sister Rhea as his wife. However, according to the prediction of mother Gaia, his own son was to deprive him of power, therefore, as soon as Rhea had children, Kron immediately swallowed them, wanting to avoid the fulfillment of the prediction. One day, Rhea deceived Kron by placing a stone wrapped in diapers instead of the youngest son of Zeus, which was swallowed by Kron.

Zeus was secretly nursed in a cave in Crete. Guarded by the Kurets, he grew up, became powerful and cunning. Having matured, on the advice of his wife Metis, he made Cronus drunk with a magical drink, thanks to which Cronus spewed into the world the brothers and sisters of Zeus - Poseidon, Hades, Hera, Demeter and Hestia. Under the leadership of Zeus, the children of Kron declared war on the titans, which lasted ten years. Terrible and stubborn was this struggle between the Kronids and Uranids. The Titans were powerful and formidable opponents. Zeus brought the Cyclopes out of Tartarus, who fettered him with thunderbolts and thunders, but they did not bring a quick victory either, no one's advantage was visible. Then Zeus brought the hundred-handed out of the bowels of the earth. They tore whole rocks from the mountains and threw them at the titans when they approached Olympus, where the Kronids settled.

The Cyclopes continued to serve them and forged weapons for the gods. The Cyclopes are killed by the god Apollo, in retaliation for the fact that they forged the thunderbolt with which Zeus struck his son, the healer god Asclepius. After the death of the Cyclopes, their place in the forge of the gods is taken by Hephaestus, who was trained in the craft by the Cyclopes.

Odysseus in the Cave of Polymeth

These are two quite different legends. In the first case, the Cyclopes - withbeings even more ancient than the Olympic gods, the brothers of the titans, in Homer's version - stupid shepherds of living creatures, sort of wild giants.

By thrusting a sharp log into the single eye of the ferocious Cyclops Polyphemus, the legendary Odysseus exterminated a unique species of pygmy elephants that lived on the island of Sicily. ancient myth about one-eyed humanoid giants were dispelled by Italian paleontologists at the scientific exposition "Polyphemus in Modena".

According to ITAR-TASS, the exhibition presents skulls discovered by researchers in Sicily, which have only one - frontal - eye socket. At first glance, it very much resembles an eye in the forehead. Scientists are sure that the bones found next to the skulls really belonged to a large mammal, which had dimensions, for example, of a large bear. However, these remains did not belong to a cyclops, but to a pygmy elephant. The "eye" in the forehead is a hole for the respiratory tract, that is, for the trunk. The organs of vision were on the sides of the head. The entire skull is surprisingly similar to the famous sculptures of the Cyclopes - ancient and Renaissance.
Similar remains have been found on many islands in the basin mediterranean sea: in Sardinia, Malta, Crete, Rhodes and Cyprus. Most likely, pygmy elephants died out shortly before famous journey fearless navigator and the appearance of Homer's Odyssey. In ancient times, massive skulls with one frontal “eye socket” were also dug out.
There were probably more such finds 2 thousand years ago than today. Such material evidence only reinforced the legend of ferocious monsters. But, as scientific calculations at the exhibition in Modena testify, they belonged to peaceful pachyderms - thick-skinned fat men who were several times smaller than those elephants that we are used to seeing in zoos.
How the "dwarfs" settled on the islands of the Mediterranean Sea remains a mystery. A long time ago, these patches of land could connect with the African continent. After all, all elephants can swim, and the owners of the skulls of the Cyclopes could swim to Sicily or Rhodes by sea.

Greek mythology is not a set of fairy tales about the adventures of gods and heroes. comprehended the world differently from the modern one. His thinking was more figurative than logical. The forces of nature were humanized and thus let into the world of people. And the myth of the Cyclopes is, to put it in a modern way, multi-part.

Worldview metas

Their story begins from the moment when the Olympian gods, having defeated the hundred-armed giants, gathered to share power and worlds among themselves.

There were three brothers: the elder Poseidon, the middle Hades and the younger Zeus. In battle, they all showed themselves with dignity and were in no way inferior to each other. And here (an interesting detail) the moral qualities of the three brothers come to the fore. The lesser gods and petty gods did not want to see either the gloomy Hades or the formidable and impatient Poseidon as the ruler of heaven. According to the rules of inheritance, Poseidon should have ruled the heavens, but it turns out that other immortals also had a voice.

Cyclopean quantities and cyclops

Poseidon held a grudge and took some action to overthrow his younger brother, namely: he went and by force entered into marriage with the wife of Kronos and the mother of all things. It was an act of presenting their rights to the highest power among the gods. Subtlety - Zeus did nothing of the sort. His power rested not only on his power, but also on agreement with all subordinate gods. While Poseidon was raping the mother of all things, Zeus, along with the rest, was equipping the world. He, among other things, helped the titan Prometheus create people. And then the moment came when Gaia began to give birth to the heirs of Poseidon - huge, ugly and one-eyed. Here is the first answer to the question of who the Cyclopes are.

Without embellishment

Joyful Poseidon rushed to the island of the Cyclopes in order to go with them to Olympus and change, in his opinion, the usurper.

And if it doesn’t work out peacefully, then overthrow it. And they walked in a beautiful, freshly created world. And he saw harmonious people, saw grazing horses, oak forests, full of coolness and bliss. And he was ashamed of the ugliness of his children. The lesser gods did not dare to openly laugh at the older brother of Zeus, but Poseidon heard laughter behind his back. And he abandoned his claims, because he realized what the strength of Zeus as a ruler is in the beauty of the world he created. And he returned his children to their island, and he plunged into the depths of the ocean to surpass his younger brother in creativity.

almost gods

The modern population does not fully understand the very meaning of the word "cyclops". People simply moved away from nature and perceive the myth as an entertaining story in which there is only uncontrollable fantasy, and nothing more. But over their herds and fields, "round-eyed" (translated from Greek, the direct meaning of the word "cyclops") passed with heavy ones in which lightning flashed and thunder rumbled. These are mighty titans and their younger ones either play or fight among themselves. These forces of nature, if they were not curbed by the gods, would end human life on Earth. They are unable to create. They can only rage.

Cyclopes symbolize the extreme form of the unreasonableness of forces that many times exceed the conceivable aisles of human awareness of power as such. And this, if we shift the mythology into the modern logical language of science, is really so. In one year, thunderstorms in the middle latitudes of planet Earth consume more energy on electrical discharges alone than all of humanity has spent in the last 100 years.

Pedigree

But some titans have taken the path of humanization and therefore are able to become, like people, gods. After all, the very word "god" has a common pedigree with the word "to be." That was Prometheus. He understands who the Cyclopes are, and moves away from his close relatives, becomes a teacher of people. Prometheus is no longer an inert force and enters the gods. Zeus punishes him out of envy and completely different from the rest of the megagiants. He, immortal, is lifted up on a rock and chained. And his liver is pecked by an eagle, but it is restored overnight so that the torment lasts forever. But a man comes, and a mortal, and sets him free. Later, Hercules was lifted up on a golden chariot to Olympus, where he sat down at the banquet table along with the gods.

This is how ancient people understood their existence on Earth. There is no death. And there is inertia, which every person is able to overcome in himself and become a god. Therefore, the principle - know yourself.

Homer describes the copper age

Two centuries have passed - golden and silver. People became powerful, but the balance in their nature was disturbed. Heroism has become a priority of their existence. They began to measure their strength with incredible enthusiasm. They, mortals, defy even the gods. The petty river god prays for Achilles' mercy, the goddesses of a higher rank ask Paris to resolve the dispute that has arisen between them, Ajax throws down a daring challenge to Poseidon himself, the pacifying titan named Ocean and ruling over him.

If we understand the meaning of the word "cyclops" as the ancients understood it, then it becomes clear what a great difference there is between a hero and a man. Heroes got to the Cyclopes, not people. And Odysseus is the mightiest of those heroes. His mortal nature does not prevent him from feeling unequal to the gods. Opportunities for Odysseus are not commensurately smaller than for the same Poseidon, but their souls are equal. And they argue with each other as equals.

It is noteworthy how Homer draws the Cyclops Polyphemus. After all, he is not just a monster, but the son of Poseidon, exactly the one with whom the hero Odysseus is arguing. The incredible bodily power is inferior to the human, but also to the truly divine qualities that the hero's soul possesses. And cunning is not the most important of them. The flexibility of the creative mind is what distinguishes Odysseus from the inert forces of nature.

Divine principle or the personification of insane inertia

It is impossible to imagine, and Homer does not give any hint that the Cyclops Polyphemus, the personification of insane inertia, could learn anything. In it, this divine principle is simply absent. The guests came back from the ten-year war, the fame of which rolls around the world.

But he just doesn't care. He is reminded by Odysseus of the law of hospitality. "We'll tell you a lot of things," says the hero. But the Cyclops is only interested in the meat that strayed into his home. And the hero punishes the madman.

"Nobody! Nobody hurt me!" - Polyphemus yells at the whole ocean, and his relatives do not understand him and disperse, leaving him alone with trouble. And Odysseus begins to mock him. And blind fury rears the sea. But even Poseidon did not respond to the call of the ugly son. The law of hospitality, the law of striving for knowledge and development is a divine law. And the lord of the Ocean recognizes the justice of the hero's victory.

Are modern people capable of creating metas for themselves?

This is a very important question. Understanding who the titans are and who the cyclops are is far from easy, but necessary. modern people if they truly believe in their personal immortality. With all their boundless power, the inert forces of nature can never become gods. They have no creativity. And in people, at least in many, it is. To strive for power, forgetting who the cyclops are, it means turning into cyclops.

The powerful forces of nuclear and thermonuclear secrets only seem to be subject to man. Truly they are able to curb the creative, divine beginning. But in a different way - a dead end in which they do not honor the laws of hospitality, do not honor justice, do not like the truth and rightness. In such a world, there can only be cyclops, not heroes. Heroes are waiting for Olympus, Cyclopes - punishment.

This skull was found in a cave in Texas. After a thorough examination of the entire skeleton, the confused experts were forced to admit that the bones really belonged to the Cyclops. Not so long ago, researchers discovered similar remains giant size and in the Philippines. But aren't the Cyclopes the mythical heroes of Antiquity? It seems that the legends of many peoples of the world were completely real basis. Who were the one-eyed people, and where did they disappear to? - And again we almost got into trouble: they exist today. But this story begins in prehistoric times - from there we will begin to "dig".

In the epics of many peoples, researchers find the most amazing descriptions: flying machines that were controlled by Atlanteans, Egyptian or Indian deities. We still cannot determine exactly who and how built the pyramids at Giza and on Mars. The teachings of many ancient cultures tell us that we are not the first round of evolution, but already the sixth civilization on this planet, which began its journey virtually from scratch. It is very likely that the events described as a great flood are the result of a giant meteorite falling. But in last years scientists find many scientific evidence that the Earth actually survived a global nuclear war. For example, on the ruins of prehistoric cities in India, Turkey, Scotland and many other countries of the world, clear traces of the effects of radiation on buildings were found. The Mahabharata contains descriptions of the use of nuclear weapons as we know them today. The times the epic poem speaks of ancient india, hundreds of thousands of years away from us. According to the epic, this was the era of the asuras - the predecessors of present-day humanity.

Asuras were strong, warlike, full of pride and lust for power. They envied the gods, with difficulty restraining their rage, and were looking only for an excuse to join the battle. Scientists believe that the asuras possessed knowledge and technologies that are inaccessible to us to this day. Ancient people had third eye approximately at the level of the nose. Looking closely at the statues of the Buddha, one can discern his image, and every self-respecting Hindu marks the place between the eyebrows with a speck of paint - after all, this is the "ajana chakra", a key energy center.

We have preserved the memory of the lost organ - and this is not an abstract philosophy at all: the tritium eye appears at a certain stage of development in the embryo, and then turns into the epiphysis, or pineal gland. We are accustomed to associate the third eye with intellect, will, creativity and intuition, and not by chance - today even completely blind people can learn to read freely, look through objects and walls. And also at modern man the genetic memory of a 36-hour day has been preserved, the duration of which has changed due to the catastrophe (the Earth now rotates an order of magnitude faster and at a different angle). This is confirmed by the Mayan calendars, and experiments with people in a room without windows and clocks: a person sleeps to his heart's content, and then is actively awake for the next 20-22 hours).

Due to the powerful radiation and the ensuing nuclear winter, the surviving asuras had to move to underground shelters. In addition, it was impossible to avoid various genetic mutations. Perhaps the skull found in Texas belongs to one of the descendants of a warlike civilization who lost two eyes as a result of a genetic anomaly. Another part of the post-Asurians, on the contrary, probably retained the other two eyes and gradually replaced the Cyclopes. However, their memory remained alive for a long time.

The ancient Greeks called the Cyclopes, or rather, the Cyclopes of these humanoids (from κύκλος - “round” and όψις - “eye”). According to ancient mythology, three one-eyed giant- Arg ("shining"), Bront ("Thunder") and Sterop ("sparkling") - were the sons of Uranus and Gaia. When the angry father noticed the deformity of the newborns, he tied them up and threw them into Tartarus. When Zeus began to fight for power on Olympus, the loving mother Gaia begged him to release her children, which the young god did. Fortunately for him, because it was thanks to the Cyclopes that Zeus became the “Thunderer” - they forged lightning bolts for him, with the help of which the Olympian defeated the titans. They also forged a trident for Poseidon and a helmet for Hades, nursed little goddesses and transferred their blacksmithing skills to Hephaestus.

Later, the Cyclopes began to be rethought in a gloomy light - as ferocious cannibal giants with chicken brains. In Homer's Odyssey, a whole people of the Cyclopes is mentioned. And Odysseus himself lost several of his companions, having been captured by the one-gas Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon, but managed to escape in a herd of sheep, depriving the monster of sight. Orientalists admit that Polyphemus was only a Greek interpretation of the Turkic myth about the one-eyed monster Tepegoz, some of whose events are similar to the Odyssey. But, whatever one may say, there is no smoke without fire, and for the Cyclops to become an epic character, he had to really exist!

About the harsh reality: today medicine knows the disease cyclocephaly (Cyclopia), also called cyclopia. But it is impossible to explain the find in the American cave with it, since newborn cyclocephals live only a few hours or days, being unsuitable for independent existence, and the Texas skull belonged to an adult cyclops. As for the modern disease, it can be called, fortunately, one of the rarest (about one case in a million). Chromosomal mutations, the use of certain drugs (with teratogenic substances) in early pregnancy, lack of cholesterol or diabetes in the mother can lead to malformation of the brain and eyes in the fetus. As a result, the skull, brain and eyeballs are formed incorrectly - they can be partially fused and are located in one eye socket along the midline of the face. The nose itself is not formed - instead, a muscular proboscis appears above the eye of the Cyclops, through which the baby can breathe. Of course, the brain of such newborns has a huge number of defects and is like a vegetable.

This baby was born in India in August 2006, and doctors noticed serious abnormalities in the development of the fetus too late to terminate the pregnancy. The girl's parents could not have a child for six long years, and turned to a private clinic for infertility. It is not known what drugs the mother of the newborn was taking, but soon after the "medication" she managed to get pregnant. The girl lived only a day. Strange, but in the same month a similar story happened in St. Petersburg.

And this is Cy (English "Cy", from the abbreviated "Cyclopes"), a one-eyed white kitten, which can now be seen in the Kunstkammer in the city of Phoenix. Sai is a grim confirmation of the existence of Christmas miracles - he was born on New Year's Eve, December 28, 2005, in Redmond, Oregon (USA). During the day that the fluffy lived, the hostess managed to take several pictures. And the second kitten from the same litter is absolutely healthy and has no abnormalities.

This tiny cyclops shark was caught by a Mexican fisherman. He did not allow to seize prey for the benefit of science, but scientists managed to conduct research right on the spot.

The picture is not a mutant and not a victim of radiation. This is an ordinary copepod, aka cyclops (Copepoda), which is part of zooplankton in fresh and salty waters planets. He has only one eye - that's what nature ordered.

We do not yet know for sure all the answers that interest us, but scientists will not leave the secrets of the past to fall into dust - white spots in the history of the Cyclopes will disappear sooner or later.

And now the interest in such extraordinary creatures is constantly fueled by directors and animators who have already given the audience a lot of funny one-eyed characters: Mike and his girlfriend from Monsters, Inc., Agent Pleakley from Lilo and Stitch and Plankton from SpongeBob, the heroine of Futurama and the blue Velcro from Monsters vs. Aliens… and the list goes on.

P.S.- Favorite demotivator :)

After the fall of Troy, Odysseus and his companions sailed home. But there were many dangers along the way. Somehow their ships approached one beautiful island, sailors landed on it. They soon found out that there was another island nearby, which was inhabited by cyclops, ferocious humanoid giants. These creatures did not observe any laws, did not engage in agriculture, grazed only cattle. The land on which they lived gave them various fruits in abundance. The Cyclopes lived in solitude, hiding in huge caves and did not visit each other.

But Odysseus and the members of his team knew nothing of this. They saw on the shore small island goats in abundance. These animals have never met people and therefore the sailors were not afraid. Odysseus decided to spend the night on the shore, sleep, and go hunting in the morning.

At sunrise, he and his travelers began to catch goats. Only for one ship they caught ten goats. Then they feasted and rested. But suddenly, from a neighboring island, they heard the voices of the Cyclopes and the bleating of their herds. Odysseus was curious about what kind of creatures these Cyclopes were, and he gave the command to swim to neighboring island. They landed on the shore and saw in the mountain huge cave surrounded by huge stones. Odysseus took with him twelve travelers, a skin of wine, food, and entered the cave.

As he later learned, they ended up in the cave of the most ferocious and unsociable Cyclops - a giant who possessed great strength, he had only one eye in his forehead. Odysseus saw a lot of cheeses in the baskets, yogurt in bowls. In the cave were made pens for lambs and kids. The travelers offered Odysseus to take the cheeses, the best lambs and kids and return to the ship before it was too late. But Odysseus really wanted to see the Cyclops.

Soon the Cyclops came, he brought a bundle of firewood and threw it at the entrance to the cave. As soon as the navigators saw this giant, they huddled with fear in the very dark corner. The Cyclops drove sheep and goats into the cave, blocked the entrance with a huge stone and began to milk the goats. Then he lit a fire and by the light saw Odysseus and his travelers.

Who are you? - he asked roughly. - Robbers, perhaps, sail the seas, stick to foreign lands and plunder them?

No, no, - Odysseus hastily objected to him. - We are Greeks, we are sailing from Troy. There was a storm and, in order to save our ship, we were forced to land on this island. Be merciful with us, dear, accept us as your guests. Is
you do not know that Zeus, the god of thunder, punishes those who violate the laws of hospitality.

Ha, ha, ha! - the giant laughed. - It is evident at once that you are strangers. I am not afraid of any thunderers, no gods can tell me. I do what I wanna do. And whoever gets in my way, I will destroy him. Tell me where your ship is.

Odysseus understood the danger that threatened him and his companions, and said:
- Our ship was broken by a storm, we escaped by swimming and found your cave, we hope that you will help us.

The Cyclops did not answer this, unexpectedly grabbed two travelers, hit them on the ground, threw them into the cauldron, and then ate them. Odysseus and ten of his travelers were in indescribable horror. They realized that they had fallen into a terrible trap, the cyclops would not stop until they had eaten them all to one. They could not run, as the exit from the cave was littered with a huge stone, which they could not even move. The next morning, the Cyclops repeated his meal - he grabbed two more people, killed them with a blow to the ground, boiled and ate. After that, he rolled away the stone, led out the herd, and blocked the entrance again. Odysseus and his travelers began to look for a way out of the situation, to think what to do, how to escape. There are now eight of them left. Finally, they found a huge log in the cave and it dawned on them what to do. They sharpened one end of the log and burned it in the fire.

In the evening, the cyclops returned, again grabbed two members of the team, killed and ate. He wanted to go to bed, but Odysseus approached him and offered him a cup of wine. The Cyclops liked the wine and asked for more.
Odysseus poured another cup, followed by another. The Cyclops became kinder and asked Odysseus what his name was.
- My name is "No one", - said the cunning Odysseus.
- Thank you for the wine, Nobody, and my name is "Cyclops Polyphemus." My gift is that I will eat you last.” He laughed and immediately fell asleep.

Odysseus and his travelers heated the end of the log, lifted it up and with this burning end hit the closed eye of the Cyclops. From terrible pain, the cyclops spun, pulled out a log from the eye socket, went blind, began to fumble around, jumped out of the cave, blocked the entrance to it and called other cyclops for help. They began to ask what happened to him, who burned out his eye. And he answered all the questions: "No one."

What are you yelling about then? - the Cyclopes asked in surprise and left.
In the morning, the Cyclops moved the stone away from the entrance and carefully let his sheep and goats out. He felt them from above. Then Odysseus and his comrades decided to deceive the blind giant. They grabbed the wool of the sheep from below under the belly and went free. The Cyclops, who felt the sheep, did not notice them.
Odysseus and his companions decided to somehow punish Polyphemus, they stole a herd from him, drove sheep and goats to the shore. There they took them to the ship and sailed away from the shore. From there, Odysseus shouted loudly:

Listen, Polyphemus, you yourself are to blame for becoming blind. It is Zeus, whom you do not worship, who punished you. Now you can't kill anyone. You are blind for life!
Polyphemus heard a familiar voice, grabbed a huge rock and threw it into the sea with all his might. The rock fell in front of the bow of the ship and raised such a wave that the ship was thrown back to the shore. The sailors had to drag him into the water. When they again sailed to a safe distance, Odysseus again called out to Polyphemus, who stood on the shore and looked around helplessly.

Listen, Polyphemus, I will tell you a secret, - Odysseus cheerfully shouted to him at last. - My name is not Nobody, but Odysseus, I am the king of Ithaca, remember and do not offend anyone else.
Polyphemus howled from wild impotent anger, rushed to the shore, grabbed another rock and threw it into the sea.

The prophet's prophecy has come true! he yelled in impotent fury. “I thought Odysseus was a giant, but this is an insignificant worm. May my father Poseidon punish you for depriving me of my only eye. - He grabbed the rock again and threw it after the sailing ship. But the distance was already too great, and the fallen rock did no harm to the ship, the waves from it only drove it more strongly into the open sea.