Odysseus answers Alcinous at last. He is Odysseus, son of Laertes, from rocky Ithaca, known for tricks, and heaven has laid a heavy hand on him. He starts after Troy. At Ismarus he sacks the Cicons and tells his men to leave. They stay on the beach drinking until inland fighters arrive at dawn and kill six from every ship. Nine days of foul wind later they land among the Lotus-eaters. Three scouts eat the flower and forget home. Odysseus drags them back, ties them under the benches, and orders the rest aboard before anyone else tastes it.
They reach the land of the Cyclopes, who plant nothing and hold no assemblies. First they feast on a goat island across the water, watching the smoke of Cyclops fires. Then Odysseus crosses with one ship, takes twelve men and a skin of Maron's wine, and walks into a cave full of cheeses and lambs. The crew want to steal and run. He waits to see the owner. Polyphemus comes home, rolls a stone over the mouth that twenty-two wagons could not move, and asks who they are. Odysseus lies that Neptune wrecked them. The giant eats two men like puppies, then two more at breakfast, and says the guest-gift for Noman will be to be eaten last.
Odysseus cannot kill him inside the sealed cave or they all die in the dark. He cuts six feet from a green olive club, hardens the point in the fire, and hides it in dung. He gets Polyphemus drunk on the unmixed wine, gives the name Noman, and when the giant sleeps they bore the glowing stake into the one eye. Polyphemus shouts that Noman is killing him by fraud. The other Cyclopes go home and tell him to pray to his father Neptune. At dawn Odysseus binds the men under the bellies of rams in threes and hangs himself under the finest ram. Polyphemus feels the backs and misses the bellies. He talks to the ram as it leaves, then drives it out.
Once the ship is offshore, Odysseus will not stay quiet. He jeers. The crew beg him to stop. He shouts a third time. The giant hurls a peak that nearly swamps them. Odysseus shouts his real name: the valiant warrior Odysseus, son of Laertes, who lives in Ithaca. Polyphemus remembers Telemus, who said a man named Odysseus would take his sight, and he had expected a giant, not this small trick. He prays to Neptune: if the man must see home, let it be late, in another man's ship, with all his crew dead, and trouble waiting in the house. The curse is granted. They sail on with fewer men and a sea-god now hunting them by name.
Coming Up in Chapter 10
Aeolus bags the storm winds, ties the mouth with silver thread, and sends them west. Ithaca's fires come into view. Then the bag is opened while Odysseus sleeps, and the same winds drive them back to the man who will not help twice.
