Odyssey 9.336 · Book 9, lines 336–339
The Cyclops drives the flocks in
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ἑσπέριος δʼ ἦλθεν καλλίτριχα μῆλα νομεύων. αὐτίκα δʼ εἰς εὐρὺ σπέος ἤλασε πίονα μῆλα πάντα μάλʼ, οὐδέ τι λεῖπε βαθείης ἔκτοθεν αὐλῆς, ἤ τι ὀισάμενος, ἢ καὶ θεὸς ὣς ἐκέλευσεν.
At evening he came, herding his fair-fleeced flocks. At once he drove into the wide cave his fat flocks, all of them, nor left anything outside in the deep courtyard — whether suspecting something, or a god so bade him.
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The setting
Evening; the giant Polyphemus returns to the cave where Odysseus and his men are trapped. This time — unlike the day before — he brings the whole flock, rams and all, inside with him.
A note on this passage
A single changed habit tightens the trap. The evening before, the Cyclops had left the male animals out in the yard; tonight he drives every beast inside and seals the cave. The narrator marks the difference and gropes for a cause — caution, or a god's prompting — without deciding between them.
That hesitation is the undercurrent. Odysseus the storyteller will not claim to know the giant's mind, so he sets the two explanations side by side. But the second one lands harder: if a god arranged it, the rams now penned inside are the very means of the escape to come. The trap tightening is also, unseen, the door opening.
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