Greek mythology is not a collection of fairy tales about the adventures of gods and heroes. Ancient people did not comprehend the world as they do today. His thinking was more figurative than logical. The forces of nature were humanized and thereby allowed into the world of people. And the cyclops myth is, to put it in a modern way, multi-part.
World Meta
Their story begins from the moment when the Olympian gods, having defeated the hundred-armed giants, gathered to share power and worlds among themselves.
There were three brothers: the eldest Poseidon, the middle Hades and the younger Zeus. In the battle, all of them proved themselves worthily and were in no way inferior to each other. And here (an interesting detail), the moral qualities of the three brothers come to the fore. The lesser gods and petty gods did not want to see the ruler of heaven either gloomy Hades, or the formidable and impatient Poseidon. According to the rules of inheritance, Poseidon should have ruled the skies, but it turns out that other immortals also had a voice.
Cyclopsic quantities and cyclops
Poseidon harbored a grudge and took some actions to overthrow his younger brother, namely: he went and forcibly married his wife Kronos and the mother of everything. It was an act of claiming the rights to the highest power among the gods. Subtlety - Zeus did nothing of the kind. His power rested not only on his power, but also in agreement with all subordinate gods. While Poseidon raped the mother of everything, Zeus, along with the rest, arranged the world. He, among other things, helped Titan Prometheus create people. And then the moment came when Gaia began to give birth to the heirs of Poseidon - huge, ugly and one-eyed. This is the first answer to the question of who these cyclops are.
Unvarnished
Poseidon joyfully rushed to the island of the Cyclopes in order to go with them to Olympus and change, in his opinion, the usurper.
And if it doesn’t work out in peace, then overthrow it. And they walked in a beautiful, freshly created world. And he saw harmonious people, saw grazing horses, oak groves, full of coolness and bliss. And ashamed of the ugliness of his children. The smaller gods did not dare to openly laugh at Zeus's elder brother, but behind his back Poseidon heard laughter. And he refused his claims, because he realized what the strength of Zeus as a ruler is in the beauty of the world he created. And he returned his children to their island, and he plunged into the depths of the ocean to surpass his younger brother in creativity.
Almost gods
Modern population does not fully understand the very meaning of the word "cyclops". People simply departed from nature and perceive the myth as an entertaining story, in which there is one unstoppable fantasy, and nothing more. But over the dwellings of ancient people, over their herds and fields, “round-eyed” (translated from Greek, the direct meaning of the word “cyclops”) passed with heavy thunderclouds, in which lightning flashed and thundered. These mighty titans and their younger ones either play or fight among themselves. These forces of nature, if they were not curbed by the gods, would cease human life on Earth. They are not able to create. They can only run amok.
Cyclops symbolize the extreme form of the unreasonableness of forces that are many times greater than the conceivable aisles of human awareness of power as such. And this, if mythology is transferred to the modern logical language of science, is indeed so. For one year, thunderstorms in the middle latitudes of planet Earth spend more energy on electrical discharges alone than all of humanity has spent over the past 100 years.
Pedigree
But some titans have embarked on the path of humanization and therefore are able to become, like humans, gods. After all, the word "god" itself has a common pedigree with the word "to be." Such was Prometheus. He understands who the Cyclopes are, and moves away from his close relatives, becomes a teacher of people. Prometheus is no longer inert power and is entrance to the gods. Zeus punishes him out of envy and completely different from the rest of the mega-giants. He, immortal, ascended to a rock and chained. And the eagle pecks his liver, but it is restored over night, so that the torment lasts forever. But a man comes, the son of Zeus and the mortal, and sets him free. Later, Heracles was ascended on a golden chariot to Olympus, where he sat at the banquet table with the gods.
This is how ancient people understood their existence on Earth. There is no death. But there is an inertness that every person is able to defeat in himself and become a god. Therefore, the principle - know yourself.
Homer Describes the Copper Age
Two centuries have passed - gold and silver. People became powerful, but the balance in their nature was disturbed. Heroism has become a priority for their existence. They began to measure their strength with incredible enthusiasm. They mortals challenge even the gods. The shallow river god prays for the mercy of Achilles, the goddesses of a higher rank ask Paris to resolve the dispute that arose between them, Ajax challenges the very Poseidon himself, who pacifies the titan named Ocean and rules over him.
If you understand the meaning of the word "cyclops" as the ancients understood it, it becomes clear what a big difference between the hero and the person. Heroes fell to the Cyclops, not people. And Odysseus is the most powerful of those heroes. His mortal nature is not a prohibition to make him feel unequal to the gods. Odyssey’s capabilities are not commensurably smaller than those of Poseidon, but their souls are equal. And they argue with each other as equals.
It is noteworthy how Homer draws Cyclops Polyphemus. After all, he is not just a monster, but the son of Poseidon, exactly the one with whom the hero Odysseus is arguing. Incredible bodily power is inferior to human, but also truly divine qualities that the hero’s soul possesses. And the trick is not the most important of them. The flexibility of the creative mind is what distinguishes Odysseus from the inert forces of nature.
The divine principle or the personification of insane inertness
It is impossible to imagine, but Homer does not give any hint that Cyclops Polyphemus, the personification of insane inertness, could learn anything. In it, this divine principle is simply absent. Guests came back from a ten-year war, the fame of which is rolling around the world.
But he is simply not interested. Odysseus reminds him of the law of hospitality. "We will tell you a lot of things," says the hero. But the cyclops is only interested in meat, which has strayed into his home. And the hero punishes the madman.
"No one! No one offended me! ” - Polyphemus yells at the whole ocean, but his relatives do not understand him and disperse, leaving him alone with the trouble. And Odysseus begins to taunt him. And blind rage rears the sea. But even Poseidon did not respond to the call of the ugly son. The law of hospitality, the law of the pursuit of knowledge and development is a divine law. And the lord of the Ocean recognizes the justice of the victory of the hero.
Are modern people capable of creating meta for themselves?
This is a very important issue. Understanding who the titans are and who the cyclopes are is far from simple, but necessary for modern people if they truly believe in their personal immortality. With all its immense power, the inert forces of nature can never become gods. They have no creativity. And in people, at least in many, it is. To strive for power, having forgotten who Cyclopes are, this means turning into Cyclops.
The powerful forces of nuclear and thermonuclear secrets only seem subject to man. Truly they can be curbed by the creative, divine principle. And in a different way - a dead end in which they do not honor the laws of hospitality, do not honor justice, do not like truth and rightness. In such a world, there can only be cyclops, not heroes. Olympus awaits the heroes, cyclops - punishment.