The Stories of Homer

When the Greeks began to learn how to read and write, one of them decided to write down the old Greek stories that had been told out loud around Greek fires for years and years. His name was Homer, and he was the first great Greek writer.

Homer wrote the story of a famous war—the Greek attack on the city of Troy. This war was called the “Trojan War,” and Homer tells about it in his long poem, the Iliad. After he finished the Iliad, he wrote another story, called the Odyssey. The Odyssey was about Odysseus, a Greek warrior who fought in the Trojan War. When Odysseus started to sail back home, he ran into all kinds of trouble! Here is one of the stories from the Odyssey:

dysseus and his men sailed away from Troy, looking forward to their return home. They praised all the gods of Greece for keeping them alive through the war. And they thanked the gods for their victory.

But they forgot to thank Poseidon, the god of the sea. Poseidon was furious at being left out. He sent a strong wind to blow the ships off course, so that Odysseus would have a hard time getting home.

Odysseus and his men got lost, out there on the sea. After many days of sailing, Odysseus and his tired, hungry sailors saw a beautiful island. It was cool and shady, full of wheat and grapevines and wild goats that could be killed for food. So they landed their ships on the beach, got out their bows and arrows, and hunted. When they had killed enough meat, they lit fires, roasted the goats, and feasted. And the next morning, when the dawn lit the sky red, they got up to explore.

Around the other side of the island, Odysseus and his men found a huge cave, carved into a cliff.

“Who lives here?” Odysseus asked. “Let’s go in and find out.” He took with him his twelve strongest men, along with a jug of sweet wine for a present. The rest of his men he sent back to the ships.

Odysseus and his twelve companions came up to the cave and peered in—but they could see no one. Carefully, they crept in. There they found pens of lambs and baby goats. The walls were lined with racks of cheeses, each cheese bigger than a man’s head. Beneath them sat the bowls into which the cave’s owner milked his goats, each bowl large enough for a man to lie down in.

When they saw this, Odysseus’s men were terrified. “A giant lives here!” they said. “Let’s take some cheese and some of the lambs, and get back to the ship before he returns!”

But Odysseus refused to run away. “We’ll wait here and greet him when he returns!” he said. So the men cut up some cheese and ate it for their dinners, after offering some of it to the gods as a sacrifice. And they waited. Dark fell over the island. And when it was completely dark, they heard footsteps, each one shaking the ground.

In through the door came the cave’s owner. He was a giant, as tall as three men standing on each other’s shoulders. He had only one eye, right in the center of his forehead. He was a Cyclops!

The Cyclops was herding his sheep in front of him. And he carried over his shoulder three or four trees that he had pulled up for firewood. He flung them onto the floor of the cave with such noise that Odysseus and his men hid themselves in fright. When all the sheep were inside the cave, the Cyclops rolled a huge stone across the cave’s entrance—a stone so heavy that twenty men couldn’t have shifted it aside. He milked his sheep and goats and got up to light his fire.

When the flames roared up, the Cyclops saw Odysseus and his men, hiding at the far end of the cave. “Well,” he roared, “what do we have here? Robbers? Have you crept into my cave to take my sheep and my cheese?”

“No,” Odysseus said, his voice shaking with fright.

“If you are travelers,” the Cyclops said, “where is your ship?”

But Odysseus was afraid that the Cyclops might want to find the ship and destroy it. So he lied: “We were shipwrecked on your island,” he said, “and our ship is destroyed.”

The Cyclops didn’t answer. Instead, he snatched up two of Odysseus’s men and ate them on the spot. And then he washed down his horrible meal with goat’s milk, lay down on the floor, and went to sleep.

“Let’s kill him while he sleeps!” Odysseus’s men urged him. But Odysseus refused. “If we kill him,” he said, “who will let us out of the cave? That stone is too heavy for us to move. We would die in here!”

So Odysseus and his men spent the night huddled at the back of the cave, listening to the Cyclops snore as loud as thunder.

The Cyclops slept all night. When the red dawn came, he woke up, lit his fire, milked the goats, and grabbed two more of Odysseus’s men for breakfast. After he ate them and drank some more milk, he pushed the stone away from the entrance to the cave and drove the sheep out. But before Odysseus and his men could dash out of the cave, the Cyclops rolled the stone back again, as easy as putting a lid on a jar.

Odysseus’s men were terrified, moaning and crying. But Odysseus paced up and down the cave and thought, hard. Finally he went to the pile of trees that the Cyclops had brought in for firewood. Several of them still lay beside the sheep-pen, where the Cyclops had dropped them. One of the trees there was tall and green.

“Come on,” Odysseus said to his men. “Be brave! Do what I say, and we’ll escape. Let’s cut a long piece off the end of this tree, about as long as a man is tall, and sharpen it. Don’t ask why; just do what I say.”

The men cut the tree and sharpened it, and then Odysseus burned the sharp point in the coals of the fire until it was hard and black.

When the monster came back into the cave that evening, he drove his sheep and goats in, and again sealed up the door with the huge stone. Then he grabbed two more of the men and ate them, washing them down with goat’s milk. And then Odysseus took his courage in both hands and went forward.

“Cyclops!” he said. “You’ve eaten so many of my men that you must be thirsty. Milk won’t help that thirst! Here, I’ve got a jug of the best sweet wine you’ve ever tasted.”

He held up the jug of wine that he had brought into the cave, and the Cyclops sniffed at it. It smelled so good that he drank a mouthful, and then another, and then another. Soon the whole jug of wine was gone. And the Cyclops was very sleepy.

“What’s your name?” he growled. “Who’s giving me this wonderful stuff to drink?

“My name is Noman,” Odysseus said.

“Noman, I’m pleased with your wine,” the Cyclops answered. “So I’ll eat you last!” And with that he sprawled over and went to sleep, right there on the ground.

Then Odysseus and four of his men dragged out the sharpened log they had hidden in the straw, and drove it right into the Cyclops’s single eye.

The Cyclops leaped up and roared with pain. He stumbled all around his cave, grabbing blindly for Odysseus and his men. But they got easily away from him, because he could no longer see them.

Soon, Odysseus and his men heard other footsteps outside the cave. The Cyclops’ friends and neighbors had come to find out what all the noise was about. “Why are you making so much noise?” they called to the Cyclops. “You’re keeping us from sleeping! Is someone attacking you?”

“Noman!” the Cyclops yelled. “Noman is trying to kill me!”

“No man?” the other monsters answered. “Well, then, go back to sleep!” And they all went away.

The Cyclops, groaning with pain, lay down until morning. Then he got up, feeling his way around with his hands, and rolled the stone away.

So Odysseus caught three fat sheep for every one of his men, and tied the sheep together in groups of three. He told each one of his men to hold on to the stomach fleece of the sheep in the middle of each group, and to let the sheep carry them out past the Cyclops. The Cyclops put his hands right on the sheep’s backs—but he couldn’t find the men who were holding on underneath.

When Odysseus and his men had gotten out past the Cyclops, they ran for their ships. The rest of the men saw them coming. Odysseus started to yell, “Pull for the sea! Pull for the sea!” And as soon as they had scrambled aboard, the oarsmen rowed the ships out into the water, safely away from the island of the Cyclops.

Then Odysseus began to shout, “Cyclops! Cyclops! See what happens to you when you eat guests who come to your house? You should have known better than to fall for my tricks!”

The blind Cyclops heard his jeers. In fury, he wrenched a huge boulder off the side of the cliff and threw it towards Odysseus’s voice. Waves pushed the ship around, but Odysseus shouted again, “Cyclops, if anyone asks you who put out your eye and spoiled your beauty, tell them that it was Odysseus!”

“Curses on you!” the Cyclops yelled back. “I’m the son of Poseidon, the god of the sea! And I will ask him to send waves and wind that will sink your ship so that you’ll never reach home alive!”

Odysseus ignored the Cyclops’ threat. He told his men to row for the open water. As soon as they were far away from the island, their sails caught the wind and they headed for home.

But Poseidon heard the Cyclops’ request. He sent winds to blow Odysseus off course, and waves to batter his ship into pieces. It took ten long years and many dangerous adventures before Odysseus finally reached his home.