ysical
strength; finally any resistance which might come from the rest of the
Cyclops outside must be rendered nugatory. Such are the three chief
points of the impending problem, which Ulysses has to meet and does
meet with astonishing skill and foresight; the Cyclops is blinded, is
made helpless by drink, and is befooled by a pun.

Ulysses burns out the eye of the monster with the charred end of a
stick of olive wood, which he prepares beforehand; huge Round-eye (the
meaning of the word _Cyclops_) has no eye now. Ulysses by means of that
miraculous wine, product of culture, makes the giant drunk, who thus
loses his physical superiority. The Ithacan evidently knew, as well as
the American, the power of fire-water over the wild man; that the wine
had some strength, is shown by the fact that one cup of it had to be
diluted with twenty measures of water, when taken by ordinary mortals.
Not without significance does the exhilarated Cyclops laud this
civilized wine in contrast to that of the wild grapes of his own land.

But the third scheme of Ulysses is the most subtle of all, and touches
the heart of the whole problem, though it be merely a pun. He calls
himself Nobody to Polyphemus, who, without sight or insight, is the
victim of a word. For a complete man must have not only a double sight
from his eyes, but a double insight from his mind, seeing before and
after in the latter case especially. The result is when the other
Cyclops, roused by the cries of Polyphemus, ask him from outside the
cave: What is the matter? he answers, Nobody is killing me. Whereat off
they go, dropping a word or two of cold advice, or perchance of
sarcastic humor.

We should, however, reach down to the essence of what appears on the
surface as a mere trick of speech. It may seem far-fetched to say, but
it is none the less the actual fact, that Ulysses is a Nobody, and a
very active one to Polyphemus. That is, he has shown himself the
negative power which overwhelms the giant, who is now himself quite
reduced to a nobody by Mr. Nobody. Or, in abstract terms, Ulysses has
negated the negation and has here suggested the subtle work of the
process in doing so. Has he not negatived Polyphemus, who was himself a
negative, so carefully and fully defined by the poet at the start?

Thus we come upon the deepest pun ever made, or possible to be made, a
literary form which the greatest geniuses have been fond of sporting
with; we can find puns in Dante,