Odyssey 9.345 · Book 9, lines 345–346
Odysseus offers the bowl
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καὶ τότʼ ἐγὼ Κύκλωπα προσηύδων ἄγχι παραστάς, κισσύβιον μετὰ χερσὶν ἔχων μέλανος οἴνοιο·
And then I spoke to the Cyclops, standing close by, holding in my hands an ivy-wood bowl of dark wine:
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The setting
Two of his men have just been eaten. Odysseus steps up to the giant with the bowl of Maron's wine — the terribly strong, unmixed wine he had carried from Ismarus for exactly such a moment.
A note on this passage
The counter-attack begins not with the stake but with a cup. Odysseus walks straight up to the thing that has just devoured his companions and offers it a drink of the dark, unmixed wine — the same wine, given him by Maron, that he had a foreboding he would need.
The move is pure guest-craft turned into a weapon. The bowl looks like courtesy, the very hospitality the Cyclops has trampled; in Odysseus's hands it is the first step of the blinding. To come 'close by' the monster with wine in your hands is nerve of a particular, cold kind — the cunning the poem prizes, dressed as a gift.
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