Book IX · Episode 2 of 5
Into the Cyclops’ cave
Scouting party trapped in Cyclops’ cave
Scenes
- The Cyclops’ shores — Crew hunts wild goats by day
- Fleet drifts ashore unseen in darkness
- Lawless giants never touch this land
- Crew sleeps on beach, explores at dawn
- Nymphs rouse the mountain goats for them
- Men grab their bows and long spears
- Scouting Polyphemus’s cave — Odysseus scouts Polyphemus’s cave with wine
- Leaves rest of fleet behind
- Finds a vaulted cave penned with flocks
- Herdsman built like a mountain peak
- Picks twelve of his bravest men
- Wine was Maron of Ismarus’s gift
- Trapped in the cave — Polyphemus traps crew behind boulder
- Find cheese baskets and pens of lambs
- Companions beg to grab food and flee
- Odysseus refuses, wants to test hospitality
- Cyclops drives his flock inside at evening
- Boulder needs twenty-two wagons to budge