When I woke up this morning, the site of a captured Saddam Hussein was gracing my television screen. He looked disheveled, unkempt, scruffy, or in more plain language weird. We describe people as weird when they do not conform to the standards of our society. In Homer’s Odyssey, whenever Odysseus comes across an unfamiliar land he asks the same question: “What are they here-violent, savage, lawless? / or friendly to strangers, god-fearing men?” (13. 228-229). In this question, he gives the values of his culture. In the poem, Odysseus lands on many different lands, but non-have inhabitants that affirm and disobey the standards of Greek culture more then the Phaeacians’ city and the land of the Cyclops. 

When Odysseus lands in the shore of the Phaeacians, he is about as clean looking as the aforementioned Hessian. Therefore, when he sees a group of young girls he demonstrates his heroic tactical mind and does not supplicated the girl, which might scare her; instead, he compliments her and ask for help at a distance.  The young princess responds by saying “every stranger and beggar / comes from Zeus, and what ever scraps we give / he’ll be glad to get” (6.227-229). Here the princess of the Phaeacians demonstrates her people’s famous friendliness to strangers and submission to the will of Zeus, which are both principles of Greek culture in Homeric times.

 When Odysseus is eating at the house of the Phaeacians king and queen, he again receives great xenia in the form of being bathed and a meal. Whilet receiving excellent Xenia at the Phaeacians’ land, Odysseus’ heroic qualities are again highlighted. When the Phaeacians’ blind bard sings one of his stories is about the strategic brilliance of Odysseus at the battle of Troy. Later Odysseus himself gets the opportunity to tell his own tales of hardship and how his cunning got him out of those situations. After the Phaeacians had heard Odysseus trials they “all fell silent, hushed, / his story holding them spellbound down the shadowed halls” (13. 1-2). The ability for Odysseus’ story to amaze the Phaeacians who demonstrate the best value of Greek culture shows off the type off the awe-inspiring hero Odysseus is.

The only thing that people three thousand years ago and today find more captivating then people who demonstrate the highest standards of a society are those who do not follow any of them or the weirdoes. In the pantheon of weirdoes, that Odysseus encounters in the Odyssey, none is in more direct contrast to the values of the culture that the Phaeacians so ably display then the Cyclops. The Cyclops exhibits their savageness in many ways. The Greeks have a lot of pride when it comes to their ships as demonstrated by the number of times they were referred to in the Iliad. The Cyclops has an island full of goats near there shore but do not reach it “For the Cyclops have no ships with crimson prows,” (9.139). This lack of ships, which the Greeks valued so much, would have appalled an audience that was hearing the Odyssey.

Before Odysseus lands on the island of the Cyclops we learn that “ they have no meeting place for council, no laws either, / no up on the mountain peaks they live in arching caverns” (9.126-127). The Cyclops living in caverns is in direct contrast to the values that the Greeks had in living in homes or their oikos. Furthermore the Cyclops make decisions without a council which the Greeks use throughout the Iliad and Odyssey to make decisions. 

The atrocities that the Cyclops commits just escalate in stature as the story goes on. If there is anything that would be the highest moray in Greek culture that runs consistent in the Iliad and the Odyssey is one must not disrespect the gods. The Cyclops crosses this taboo: “We Cyclops never blink at Zeus and Zues’s shield / of storm and thunder, or any other blessed god” (9.309.310). Like all other characters in Homer’s epics, the Cyclops is punished for this transgression in the form of Odysseus blinding him.

The Cyclops savage behavior is cemented when he is compared to an animal in a simile as he eats Odysseus’ men: “he bolted them down like a mountain-lion left no scrape” (.9.329). Here the poet is showing how the behavior of the Cyclops is not even considered  part of the human realm.

Odysseus is a great warrior but the heroic skill that sets him apart from the other Greek warriors is his crafty mind of many twists and turns. When Odysseus encounters the antitheses on Greek culture in the Cyclops it is his shrewdness that gets him out of the situation. The high esteem that the bard who created the Odyssey has for Odysseus is demonstrated by the praise that the high class Phaeacians have for his ability to overcome the ordeals he has suffered.