Odyssey 9.371 · Book 9, lines 371–374
Sleep the all-subduer
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ἦ καὶ ἀνακλινθεὶς πέσεν ὕπτιος, αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα κεῖτʼ ἀποδοχμώσας παχὺν αὐχένα, κὰδ δέ μιν ὕπνος ᾕρει πανδαμάτωρ· φάρυγος δʼ ἐξέσσυτο οἶνος ψωμοί τʼ ἀνδρόμεοι· ὁ δʼ ἐρεύγετο οἰνοβαρείων.
He spoke, and reeling back fell flat on his back, and then he lay bending aside his thick neck, and sleep the all-subduer took him down; and from his gullet gushed wine and gobbets of human flesh, and he belched, heavy with wine.
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The setting
The Cyclops has promised his cruel guest-gift. Now the wine finishes its work: the giant collapses into a drunken, monstrous sleep.
A note on this passage
The wine finishes its work. The giant topples backward, his great neck lolling, and sleep drops him; then his own drunkenness turns his stomach and he vomits up wine mixed with the flesh of the men he ate. It is deliberately disgusting.
The undercurrent is that sleep is called pandamátōr, the all-subduer — the one force that levels the monster the way nothing else in the cave can. The creature who feared no god is undone by the plainest of human things, drink and sleep, and the horror of the belched flesh keeps the reader from feeling any pity for what is about to be done to him.
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