Record #112
One-Eyed Beings-Cyclopes
Gigantic one-eyed beings associated with monstrous strength and primitive power.
Original Text
Before it became the name of an optical instrument, the word ‘monocle’ was applied to beings who had a single eye. So, in a sonnet composed at the beginning of the seventeenth century, Góngora writes of the Monóculo galánde Gal- atea (‘The monocle who yearns for Galatea’) - referring, of course, to Polyphemus, of whom he had previously written in his FábuladePolifemo:
Un monte era demiembros eminente Este que, deNeptunohijofiero,
De un ojoilustra el orbe de su frente, Émulo casidel mayor lucero;
Cíclope a quienelpinomás valiente Bastón leobedecía tan ligero,
Y al grave peso junco tan delgado, Que un día era bastóny otro caiado.
Negro el cabello, imitadorundoso De las oscuras aguas del Leteo,
Al viento que le peina proceloso Vuela sin orden, pendesin aseo; Un torrente es su barba impetuoso Que, adusto hijo de este Pirineo, Su pecho inunda, o tarde o mal o en vano Surcada aún delos dedos de su mano.
[An eminent peak of limbs he was, this uncouth son of Neptune, lighting the orb of his forehead with an eye almost rivalling the greatest star; a Cyclops to whom the stoutest pine obeyed as a light cane, and was to his bulky mass a reed so slender that one day it was a walking-stick and the next a shepherd’scrook.
Jet black his hair, a wavy imitator of the dark waters of the Lethe, in the wind which stormily combs it, blowing in a tangle and dangling in disorder; a plunging torrent is his beard, which - stern son of this Pyrenee - overflows his breast, too late or badly or in vain furrowed by the fingers of his hand.]
These lines outdo and are weaker than others from the third book of the Aeneid (praised by Quintilian), which in turn outdo and are weaker than still other lines from the ninth book of the Odyssey. This literary decline matches a decline in the poet’s faith; Virgil wishes to impress us with his Polyphemus, but scarcely believes in him; and Góngora believes only in words or in verbal trickery.
The Cyclops were not the only race of men having one
Un monte era demiembros eminente Este que, deNeptunohijofiero,
De un ojoilustra el orbe de su frente, Émulo casidel mayor lucero;
Cíclope a quienelpinomás valiente Bastón leobedecía tan ligero,
Y al grave peso junco tan delgado, Que un día era bastóny otro caiado.
Negro el cabello, imitadorundoso De las oscuras aguas del Leteo,
Al viento que le peina proceloso Vuela sin orden, pendesin aseo; Un torrente es su barba impetuoso Que, adusto hijo de este Pirineo, Su pecho inunda, o tarde o mal o en vano Surcada aún delos dedos de su mano.
[An eminent peak of limbs he was, this uncouth son of Neptune, lighting the orb of his forehead with an eye almost rivalling the greatest star; a Cyclops to whom the stoutest pine obeyed as a light cane, and was to his bulky mass a reed so slender that one day it was a walking-stick and the next a shepherd’scrook.
Jet black his hair, a wavy imitator of the dark waters of the Lethe, in the wind which stormily combs it, blowing in a tangle and dangling in disorder; a plunging torrent is his beard, which - stern son of this Pyrenee - overflows his breast, too late or badly or in vain furrowed by the fingers of his hand.]
These lines outdo and are weaker than others from the third book of the Aeneid (praised by Quintilian), which in turn outdo and are weaker than still other lines from the ninth book of the Odyssey. This literary decline matches a decline in the poet’s faith; Virgil wishes to impress us with his Polyphemus, but scarcely believes in him; and Góngora believes only in words or in verbal trickery.
The Cyclops were not the only race of men having one