Odyssey 9.244 · Book 9, lines 244–249
The giant at his evening chores
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ἑζόμενος δʼ ἤμελγεν ὄις καὶ μηκάδας αἶγας, πάντα κατὰ μοῖραν, καὶ ὑπʼ ἔμβρυον ἧκεν ἑκάστῃ. αὐτίκα δʼ ἥμισυ μὲν θρέψας λευκοῖο γάλακτος πλεκτοῖς ἐν ταλάροισιν ἀμησάμενος κατέθηκεν, ἥμισυ δʼ αὖτʼ ἔστησεν ἐν ἄγγεσιν, ὄφρα οἱ εἴη πίνειν αἰνυμένῳ καί οἱ ποτιδόρπιον εἴη.
And sitting down he milked his ewes and the bleating goats, all in due order, and he put a young one under each ewe. At once he curdled half the white milk, gathered it up and laid it down in plaited baskets; the other half he set up again in vessels, so that for him there might be it to drink as he took it, and that for his supper it might be there.
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The setting
Inside the sealed cave Polyphemus sits to his ordinary evening work — milking his ewes and goats, setting each lamb to nurse, storing the milk — while the trapped men watch.
A note on this passage
A quiet domestic sequence. The Cyclops milks in order, sets each lamb to its mother, curdles half the milk into baskets and stands the rest by to drink. It is the unhurried routine of any Greek herdsman, done with care and method.
The horror is in the calm. This is the same patient hand that will, in a moment, snatch up two men and dash them on the floor. Homer lets us watch the monster be competent, even tidy, before he is cruel — the ordinariness makes the coming violence colder, not warmer. A good shepherd and a man-eater share one pair of hands.
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