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Polyphemus was the son of Poseidon and Thoosa, a daughter of Phorcys and Ceto. He was a cyclops and enemy of Odysseus, who blinded him.

Myths & Legends[]

The Sicilian Greek poet Theocritus wrote two poems circa 275 BC concerning Polyphemus' desire for Galatea, a sea nymph. When Galatea instead married Acis, a Sicilian mortal, a jealous Polyphemus killed him with a boulder. Galatea turned Acis' blood into a river of the same name in Sicily.

The Odyssey[]

According to Homer's The Odyssey, the Cyclopes live on a remote island, an island which was found by Odysseus and his crew after they escape the Trojan war. The Cyclops Polyphemus was encountered by Odysseus and his crew, and instead of helping them, he ate and killed various members of the crew and trapped the rest in his cave. When Polyphemus slept, Odysseus blinded him with a wood stick in retaliation of what he did.

Polyphemus then called on his immortal father to punish Odysseus, which resulted in the 10-year-long delay he experienced in returning home from Troy.

The epic Roman poet Virgil wrote in book three of The Aeneid how Aeneas and his crew land on the island. Virgil's accounts act as a sequel to Homer's The Odyssey, even describing the fate of Polyphemus as a blind cyclops after the escape of Odysseus and his crew.

Sinbad the Sailor and Arabian Nights[]

According to Sir Richard Francis Burton's translation, during the third voyage of Sinbad the Sailor, his crew was captured by a man-eating giant, referred by Burton as Polyphemus. Here, Polyphemus is described as "...a huge creature in the likeness of a man, black of colour, ... with eyes like coals of fire and eye-teeth like boar's tusks and a vast big gape like the mouth of a well. Moreover, he had long loose lips like camel's, hanging down upon his breast and ears like two Jarms falling over his shoulder-blades and the nails of his hands were like the claws of a lion"."

Gallery[]

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