Philoxenus of Cythera (c. 435/4 – 380/79 BC)[1] was a poet of ancient Greece, who wrote more than three centuries after the Odyssey is thought to have been composed. Philoxenus took up the myth of Polyphemus in his poem Cyclops or Galatea. He composed the poem to be performed in a wild and ecstatic song-and-dance form — the dithyramb. The poem has not survived intact, but in fragments. Philoxenus' story occurs well before the one-eyed monster was blinded by Odysseus. Philoxenus was perhaps the first to provide a female love interest for the Cyclops.[2] The object of Polyphemus’ romantic desire is a beautiful sea nymph named Galatea.[3] Philoxenus’ Polyphemus is not a cave dwelling, monstrous brute, as in the Odyssey, but instead he is a bit like Odysseus himself in his vision of the world: He has weaknesses, he is adept at literary criticism, and he understands people.[4]
The date of composition for Philoxenus' Cyclops is not precisely known, but it must be prior to 388 BC, when Aristophanes parodied it in his comedy Plutus (Wealth); and probably after 406 BC, when Dionysius I became tyrant of Syracuse[5] — Philoxenus served as his court poet.[6] Aristophanes' parody suggests that there had been a recent performance in Athens of Philoxenus' Cyclops.[7]
Philoxenus lived at the court of Dionysius I, in Syracuse. According to ancient commentators, either because of his frankness regarding Dionysius' poetry, or because of a conflict with the tyrant over a female aulos player named Galatea, Philoxenus was said to have been imprisoned in the quarries and there written his Cyclops, a dithyramb about the lovesick Cyclops and the nymph Galatea; in the manner of a Roman à clef, the characters in his dithyramb, Polyphemus, Odysseus and Galatea, were meant to represent Dionysius, Philoxenus, and the aulos-player.[8]
Philoxenus had his Polyphemus play the cithara, a professional lyre requiring great skill. The Cyclops playing such a sophisticated and fashionable instrument would have been quite a surprising juxtaposition for Philoxenus' audience, and perhaps signaled a competition between two genres of performance — the nome (a primitive music form of a poem set to music) and the dithyramb. So the character of the Cyclops, in this interpretation, would not represent Dionysius the tyrant of Sicily, but perhaps instead the cithara-playing poet Timotheus.[9]
The romantic element, originated by Philoxenus, was revived by Hellenistic poets that were to follow, including: Theocritus, Callimachus, Hermesianax, and Bion of Smyrna.[10]
Philoxenus' Cyclops is also referred to in Aristotle’s Poetics. Aristotle discusses representations of people in tragedy and comedy (“tragedy differs from comedy. The latter sets out to represent people as worse than they are to-day, the former as better”).[11] Before making this point, he has indicated that as in comedy, it is the same in dithyrambic poetry, and cites as examples the Cyclops of both Timotheus and Philoxenus.[12]
The text of Aristophanes’ last extant play Plutus (Wealth) has survived, but with almost all of its choral odes missing,[1] what remains for the chorus shows Aristophanes (as he does to some extent in all his plays) parodying a contemporary literary work — in this case Philoxenus’ dithyramb Cyclops.[2] With this parody Aristophanes, while teasing literary aspects of Philoxenus' dithyramb, is at the same time commenting on musical developments occurring in the fourth century BC, developing themes that run through the whole play.[3] It also contains lines and phrases taken directly from Philoxenus’ Cyclops.[4]
The slave Cario, tells the chorus that his master has brought home with him the god Wealth, and because of this they will all now be rich. The chorus wants to dance for joy.[5] So Cario begins a different kind of performance, parodying Philoxenus' dithyramb.[6] As a solo performer leading a chorus that sings and dances, Cario recreates the form of a dithyramb being performed. He first casts himself in the role of Polyphemus and the chorus as his flock of sheep and goats:
And now I wish—threttanello!—to imitate the Cyclops and, swinging my feet to and fro like this, to lead you in the dance. But come on, children, shout and shout again the songs of bleating sheep and smelly goats and follow with your cocks skinned—for you’re going to eat the goat’s breakfast![7]
Cario vocally imitates the sound of a lyre ("threttanello") which is thought to be a reference to Philoxenus having Polyphemus play the lyre, and "to eat the goat’s breakfast" is an obscene joke referencing self-administered fellatio.[8]
The chorus, however, doesn’t want to play sheep and goats, they'd rather be Odysseus and his men, and threaten to blind Cario (as the drunken Cyclops) with a wooden stake:[9]
But we in turn will try—threttanello!—while we bleat to catch you as the Cyclops, still hungry, holding a sack of damp wild greens, and hung over to boot! Then while you happen to take a nap while leading your sheep, we’ll pick up a great half-burnt stake and blind you![10]
Philoxenus continues to be quoted in this scene from Aristophanes, and the chorus responds to Cario’s obscene joke with their own comic dscription of a drunken Cyclops passing out while leading his sheep.[11]
With the patronizing and bossy tone of Cario, and the rebellion of the chorus, Aristophanes establishes a conflict between the chorus and an individual performer, which suggests that, for some at least, perhaps including Aristophanes, in contemporary theater, the soloist was threatening to become overly dominant.[12]
Some ancient sources claimed that Philoxenus wrote his dithyramb as an allegory regarding the tyrant Dionysius and a woman named Galatea — in whom both the tyrant and the poet had a romantic interest. And it is thought that Aristophanes makes use of this love triangle in his parody, in order to score satiric points against a contemporary Athenian.[13]
Aristophanes' parody of Cyclops makes a point of having the characters repeatedly use the word 'imitate' to describe the performers task, which raises questions regarding the mimetic aspect of performance, and the relationship between art and reality. The parody seems to draw attention to the artificiality of performance, even while, ironically, Aristophanes has the characters claim spontaneity for their performance. This suggest that such philosophical ideas about art were being discussed in Athens in 388 BC when the play was performed.[14]
Aristophanes delivers a satiric rebuttal to a dithyramb that has wandered into territory more properly the domain of drama.[15]
Theocritus, born c. 300 BC, is credited with creating the genre of pastoral poetry.[1] His works are titled Idylls. His Idyll 6, and Idyll 11 contain a story of Polyphemus' love for Galatea.[2]
Theocritus’ Cyclops derives from Homer, though the differences are notable, for example Odysseus does not appear in Theocritus’ story. Also Homer’s Cyclops is beastly and wicked, while Theocritus’ is absurd, lovesick, and comic. A shared aspect is that both Homer and Theocritus each have a narrator: Odysseus and Polyphemus, respectively.[3] In Theocritus's Idyll 11, Polyphemus has discovered that music will heal lovesickness, and so he plays the panpipes, and sings a comic and sympathetic tale of his woes and of how he is beleaguered and neglected. Polyphemus loves the sea nymph Galatea, but she rejects him.[4]
Polyphemus describes himself:
I know, beautiful maiden, why it is you shun me thus.
It is because from one ear to the other, right across
The whole width of my forehead, one long shaggy eyebrow runs,
With but one eye beneath; and broad is the nose above my lip.[5]
He boasts of his musical talent:
I am skilled in piping as no other Cyclops here…[6]
He shares an erotic fantasy:
Gladly would I suffer you to singe my very soul,
And this one eye of mine, the dearest treasure I posses.
Ah me, would that my mother at my birth had given me gills,
That so I might have dived down to your side and kissed your hand.
If your lips you would not let me…[7]
A fragment of a lost idyll by Bion of Smyrna (fl c. 100 BC) also portrays Polyphemus declaring his undying love for Galatea.[1] Referring back to this, an elegy on Bion's death that was once attributed to Moschus takes the theme further in a piece of hyperbole. Where Polyphemus had failed, the poet declares, Bion's greater artistry had won Galatea's heart, drawing her from the sea to tend his herds.[2]
Although Polyphemus' love was unrequited in the previously described accounts, Polyphemus’ courtship had a more successful outcome apparently, in some later accounts. In the course of a 1st-century BC love elegy on the power of music, the Latin poet Propertius mentions as one example that "Even Galatea, it’s true, below wild Etna, wheeled her brine-wet horses, Polyphemus, to your songs."[1] The division of contrary elements, in other words, is brought into harmony.
The Roman poet Ovid (43 BC – 17/18 AD) tells the story of Polyphemus and his love for Galatea in his poem Metamorphoses.[1] Ovid's treatment of the story is particularly reliant on Theocritus’ Idylls 11 and 6.[2]
Polyphemus is not the cannibalistic monster of Homer and Virgil who terrorized Odysseus and Aeneas. Instead Polyphemus is lovesick for the sea nymph Galatea. The image of an enormous, hulking monster attempting to play the tender shepherd singing love songs is a source of humor in the Metamorphoses.[3]
Galatea, however, despises the Cyclops — she loves and pursues a young man named Acis. She declares:
While I pursued him with a constant love,
the Cyclops followed me as constantly.
And, should you ask me, I could not declare
whether my hatred of him, or my love
of Acis was the stronger.—They were equal.[4]
She describes Polyphemus:
He is filled
with passion for me. He burns hot for me,
forgetful of his cattle and his caves.[5]
Galatea continues:
Now, Polyphemus, wretched Cyclops, you
are careful of appearance, and you try
the art of pleasing. You have even combed
your stiffened hair with rakes: it pleases you
to trim your shaggy beard...[6]
Galatea then tells how Polyphemus played his shepherd's panpipes and sang a love song to her, which she and Acis, lying together hidden by a rock, overheard.[7] In his song, Polyphemus admires Galatea’s beauty, scolds her for not loving him in return, offers her gifts that include apples and two bear cubs, and points out what he considers his best feature — the single eye that is, he boasts, the size of a great shield.[8] But when Polyphemus discovers Galatea and Acis lying together, he becomes enraged with jealousy. Galatea, terrified, dives into the ocean. The Cyclops wrenches off a piece of the mountain and crushes Acis with it.[9] Galatea then returns and changes her dead lover into the spirit of the Sicilian river Acis.[10]
It was Ovid's account which was to have the greatest impact in later ages.[citation needed]
That the story sometimes had a more successful outcome for Polyphemus is also attested in the arts. In one of the murals rescued from the site of Pompeii, Polyphemus is pictured seated on a rock with a cithara (rather than a syrinx) by his side, holding out a hand to receive a love letter from Galatea, which is carried by a winged Cupid riding on a dolphin.
In another fresco, also dating from the 1st century AD, the two stand locked in a naked embrace (see below). From their union came the ancestors of various wild and war-like races. According to some accounts, the Celts (Galati in Latin, Γάλλοi in Greek) were descended from their son Galatos.[1] Other sources credit them with three children, Celtus, Illyrius and Galas, from whom descend the Celts, the Illyrians and the Gauls respectively.[citation needed]
There are indications that Polyphemus’ courtship also had a more successful outcome in one of the dialogues of Lucian of Samosata, where one of Galatea's sisters, Doris, spitefully congratulates her on her love conquest and she defends Polyphemus. From the conversation, one understands that Doris is chiefly jealous that her sister has a lover. Galatea admits that she does not love Polyphemus but is pleased to have been chosen by him in preference to all her companions.[1]
That their conjunction was fruitful is also implied in a later Greek epic from the turn of the 5th century AD. In the course of his Dionysiaca, Nonnus gives an account of the wedding of Poseidon and Beroe, at which the Nereid "Galatea twangled a marriage dance and restlessly twirled in capering step, and she sang the marriage verses, for she had learnt well how to sing, being taught by Polyphemos with a shepherd’s syrinx."[1]
Polyphemus' story, as derived from Homer’s Odyssey, has gone through several transformations.[1] The Polyphemus of Homer and Virgil, is a gigantic mountain of a monster, whereas in Euripides’ satyr play Cyclops, and in Philoxenus' dithyramb, the character, needing to be played by an actor, became human-sized, and, because of the conventions of the genre, the same was true for the pastoral poems of Theocritus; this reduction in size tended to humanize Polyphemus.[2]
Euripides, Philoxenus and Theocritus transformed Polyphemus by means of comedic eroticism. Polyphemus is transformed by Euripides from the Homeric bachelor into an intoxicated lover of young boys, and by Philoxenus and Theocritus, into the incongruous lover of a sea nymph.[3]
Polyphemus also undergoes a musical transformation. The unmusical Homeric Cyclops, in Euripides Cyclops sings, though not well: “See— here he comes, out of his rocky dwelling, drunk singing an ugly noise, howling all over the place and out of tune.”[4] However in Theocritus’s pastoral poetry, Polyphemus both sings and plays the pipes, boasting: “I can pipe like none of the Cyclopes around here!”.[5]
Ovid makes use of each of these factors of size, eroticism and musicality in his poem Metamorphosis. On the one hand, he appropriates the lovesick Cyclops of Philoxenus and Theocritus, but adds a love-triangle of his own: Polyphemus, Galatea and Acis. At the same time Ovid, restores the Homeric Polyphemus great size.[6]