book nine

• Odysseus says it is "perfection" to listen to a bard while banqueting
• Odysseus says he has been sent a long list of woes by the gods and there is no "sweeter sight for a man's eyes than his own country"
• Odysseus tells them who he is and that the "whole world" talks of his "strategems"
• Odysseus says neither Circe nor Calypso won his heart
• Odysseus talks of his experience in Ismarus with the Cicones

  • His men wanted to stay and drink and eat while Odysseus wanted to escape quickly
  • The Cicones called for the help of other Cicones and were able to kill 6 of the Acheans
  • Odysseus made sure each fallen soldier was saluted three times with a ritual call
• Odysseus talks about his journey in Cythera with the lotus eaters

  • Disembarked to draw water and to eat by the ships
  • Odysseus sends a party inland to find out what "sort" of people were there
  • The people gave his men the lotus which made them forget "all thoughts of return"
  • Tied the men to the ship
• They reach the land of the Cyclopes, a "fierce, lawless people" who do not toil the soil, leaving everything up to the immortal gods. They do not have assemblies or an established legal code, and each man governs his family
• Odysseus and his men eat the goats on the Cyclopes land because they assume a god sent it for them
• Odysseus and his men set out to find out whether the Cyclopes are "aggressive savages with no sense of right and wrong" or "hospitable and god-fearing people"
• Odysseus sees Polyphemus and calls him a "formidable monster", quite "unlike any man who eats bread"
• Odysseus fills a goatskin with wine he was given by Maron, the priest of Apollo for protecting his family, along with several gifts. He takes it with him becaus he has a sense of foreboding that they would encounter a "barbarous being of colossal strength and ferocity, uncivilised and unprincipled"
• Odysseus finds Polyphemus tending to his sheep and sneak inside and look in "amazement" at his supply of food
• Odysseus' men want to take some cheese, sheep then leave but Odysseus refuses, wanting to meet the "owner of the cave" first. They lit a fire, made an offering and helped themselves to some cheeses and waited for Polyphemus
• Polyphemus enters, throwing down wood with a "loud crash", closes his cave with a large stone and milks some of his sheep with care before spying Odysseus and his men
• Polyphemus questions them, and Odysseus supplicates invoking Zeus, but Polyphemus laughs saying the Cyclopes "care nothing" for Zeus or the rest of the gods because they are stronger than them
• Polyphemus eats his men, "dashed their heads against the floor as though they were puppies"
• Odysseus refrains from his impulse of killing Polyphemus as the rock is too heavy to move, so they just wait for the day
• Polyphemus eats a few more men, and leaves, closing the cave with the rock
• Odysseus plots to drive an olive-wood stake through his eye with four other men
• Polyphemus returns and eats two more men. Odysseus offers him unmixed wine which "befuddled his wits"
• Polyphemus is pleased, and asks his name to give him a gift. Odysseus says his name is 'Nobody' and his gift is to be eaten last
• Polyphemus falls in an "all-consuming sleep" and Odysseus and his men begin driving the olive-wood stake through his eye, "twisting it home"
• Polyphemus yells for help from the neighbouring Cyclops, but when they ask who did this to him he says 'Nobody' and is dismissed
• Polyphemus sits in the cave opening but Odysseus is clever, fashioning fake fleece for his men out of willow-twigs to pretend to be his sheep
• Polyphemus talks to one of his sheep; "sweet ram" must be grieving for his master as it lags behind
• The men escape and rejoice. Before they are out of earshot, Odysseus yells that they have escaped. Polyphemus throws rocks at them and the men try to calm Odysseus down but fails
• Polyphemus retells a prophecy from Telemus that a man called Odysseus would rob him of his sight. Polyphemus prays to Poseidon to never reach his home or that he only does after suffering, losing his friends, and in a foreign ship
• When they reach the island, they divide their spoils and Odysseus sacrifices a ram to Zeus who takes "no notice" and they grieve their men