BOOK
alogy of Ouraniones, Titans, and Gigantes with which the theogonies
are overloaded. It is enough to say that when Arges, Steropes, and
Brontes are spoken of as Kyklopes, these are manifestly the dazzling
and scorching flashes which plough up the storm-clad heavens. But
although it is possible to trace the affinity between these Kyklopes
and the beings to whom the poets of the Iliad and the Odyssey give
the same name, the latter exhibit nevertheless features very different
from the former.^ The Kyklops of the Odyssey has nothing to do
with fire ; he is the son of Poseidon and the nymph Thoosa , in
other words, he is emphatically the child of the waters, and of the
waters only — the huge mists which wrap the earth in a dark shroud.
Instead of forging armour, he feeds his flock of sheep and goats on
the rough hill-side. These herds answer to the cattle of Helios in
every respect except their brilliance. The flocks of the Kyklops are
the rough and misshapen vapours on which no sunshine sheds its
glory, while the Kyklops himself is the oppressive and blackening
mist, through which glares the ghastly eye of the shrouded sun.
This terrible being may be seen drawn with wonderful fidelity to the
spirit of the old myth in Turner's picture of the overthrow of the
troops sent by Cambyses to the shrine of the Libyan Ammon ; and
they who see the one-eyed monster glaring down on the devoted
army, where the painter was probably utterly unaware that he was
doing anything more than representing the simoom of the desert,
will recognise at once the unconscious accuracy with which the
modern painter conveys the old Homeric conception of Polyphemos.
In this picture, as in the storms of the desert, the sun becomes the
one great eye of an enormous monster, who devours every living
thing that crosses his path, as Polyphemos devoured the comrades
of Odysseus.^ The blinding of this monster is the natural sequel
- According to Mr. Bro^^^l, . the other of these meanings the word must
metal-working Kyklopes are Semitic, have, if it be Greek at all. while the name describes them as circle- * The sun, thus glaring through the builders. It is, of course, possible that stoi-m-cloud,may be regarded not merely
the name Kyklops may simply represent as the eye but as the whole face of some the Semitic Khouk-lobh "Rulers of horrible monster; and the name Kyklops the flame, or fire- worshippers," these agrees elymologically with the latter Khouk-lobh being builders of those meaning better than with the other, gigantic works which are hence sup- The word no more means of necessity a posed to be called Cyclopean. But being with one eye in the middle of his the giants with whom Odysseus was forehead, than Glaukopis, as an epithet here brought into contact were not of Athene, implies that she had only a builders at all ; and assuredly the grey eye. This name really denotes the Greek name could not have been given blinding splendour of her countenance ; to them as a race of circle-builders. The and thus the Kyklops became a being word Kyklops ought rather to mean not with an eye in the middle of his one with a round face than with a round head, but with a round face. In this eye in the midst of his face : but one or case, as it so happens, either description
