this far-reaching Fairy Tale, certainly one of the greatest and
most comprehensive ever written. It shows a movement, an evolution both
of Polyphemus and Ulysses; this inner unfolding indeed is the main
thing to be grasped. It is worth the while to take a short retrospect
of the five leading points. (1) The completely negative character of
the Cyclops as to institutions, religion, and even the physical man.
(2) This negative being is negated by the man of intelligence, who puts
out his eye, nullifies his strength by drink, and thwarts all help for
him by a punning stratagem. (3) He is made to help his enemies escape
from his cave by the skill of Ulysses who turns the force of nature
against nature. (4) The Cyclops reaches self-knowledge through Ulysses,
who tells his wrong and its punishment, who also tells his own name:
whereat the Cyclops suddenly changes and makes a humane offer. (5)
Ulysses changes the other way, becomes himself a kind of Cyclops and
receives the curse.

This curse will now follow Ulysses and drive him from island to island
through Fableland, till he gets back to Ithaca with much suffering and
with all companions lost, where he will find many troubles. In this
manner the return of Ulysses becomes intertwined with Polyphemus and
this Fableland, which furnish an underlying motive for the third Part
of the Odyssey (the last 12 Books). The curse here spoken is still
working when Ulysses reaches home and finds the suitors in possession.
Verily his negative spirit lies deep; in cursing Polyphemus, he has
cursed himself.

Thus the impartial poet shows both sides--the guilt as well as the good
in Polyphemus and in Ulysses. The man of nature has his right when he
offers to transform his conduct, and it shows that Ulysses still needs
discipline when he scorns such an offer. Polyphemus too is to have his
chance of rising, for he certainly has within himself the possibility.
Has not the poet derived the noble Arete and Alcinous and institutional
Phaeacia from the savage Cyclops? But Ulysses negatives Polyphemus just
at the start upward. The character which he showed in sacking the city
of the Ciconians is in him still, he is not yet ready to return.

The Ninth Book has thus run through its three stages and has landed us
in pure Fableland. These three stages--the attack on the Ciconians,
the Lotus-eaters, the adventure with the Cyclops--may now be seen to
be parts of one entire process, which we may call the