Chapter Ubaldo to Ulysses and Polyphemos of U by Brewer's Readers Handbook

he returned, seized other two for his supper, and, after quaffing three bowls of wine, fell asleep. Then it was that Ulysses bored out the giant’s eye with a green olive stake heated in the fire. The monster roared with pain, and after searching in vain to seize some of his tormentors, removed the rock from the mouth of the cave to let out his goats and sheep. Ulysses and his companions escaped at the same time by attaching themselves to the bellies of the sheep, and made for their ship. Polyphemos hurled rocks at the vessel, and nearly succeeded in sinking it, but the fugitives made good their flight, and the blinded monster was left to lament his loss of sight.—Homer: Odyssey, ix.

An extraordinary parallel to this tale is told in the third voyage of Sinbad the sailor. Sinbad’s vessel was driven by a tempest to an island of pygmies, and, advancing into the interior, the crew came to a “high palace,” into which they entered. At sundown came home the giant, “tall as a palm tree; and in the middle of his forehead was one eye, red and fiery as a burning coal.” Soon as he saw the intruders, he caught up the fattest of them and roasted him for his supper, then lay down to sleep, and “snored louder than thunder.” At daybreak he left the palace, but at night returned, and made his meal off another of the crew. This was repeated a third night; but while the monster slept, Sinbad, with a red-hot spit, scooped out his eye. “The pain he suffered made him groan hideously,” and he fumbled about the place to catch some of his tormentors “on whom to glut his rage;” but not succeeding in this, he left the palace, “bellowing with pain.” Sinbad and the rest lost no time in making for the sea; but scarcely had they pushed off their rafts when the giant approached with many others, and hurled huge stones at the fugitives. Some of them even ventured into the sea up to their waists, and every raft was sunk except the one on which Sinbad and two of his companions made their escape.—Arabian Nights (“Sinbad the Sailor,” third voyage).

Another similar tale occurs in the Basque legends, in which the giant’s name is Tartaro, and his eye was bored out with spits made red hot. As in the previous instances, some seamen had inadvertently wandered into the giant’s dwelling, and Tartaro had banqueted on three of them, when his eye was scooped out by the leader. This man, like Ulysses, made his escape by means of a ram, but, instead of clinging to the ram’s belly, he fastened round his neck the ram’s bell, and threw over his back a sheep- skin. When Tartaro laid his hand on the skin, the man left it behind and made good his escape.

That all these tales are borrowed from one source none can doubt. The Iliad of Homer had been translat ed into Syriac by Theophilus Edessenes, a Christian Maronite monk of mount Libanus, during the caliphate of Hárun-ur-Ráshid (A.D. 786-809). (See Notes and Queries, April 19, 1879.)

The Ulysses of Brandenburg, Albert III. elector of Brandenburg, also called “The German Achillês” (1414–1486).

The Ulysses of the Highlands, sir Evan Cameron, lord of Lochiel [Lok.keel], and surnamed “The Black” (died 1719).

It was the son of sir Evan who was called “The Gentle Lochiel.”