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 the Cyclops Polyphemus.
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.[2] 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.[3]
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.[4]
He boasts of his musical talent:
I am skilled in piping as no other Cyclops here…[5]
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…[6]