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[447] Κριὲ πέπον. The word used for ‘ram’ in the Iliad is “κτίλος, κριός” is probably connected with “κέρας”. Eustath. remarks that we are reminded by this scene of Hector ( Il.8. 185), Achilles ( Il.19. 400), and Antilochus ( Il.23. 402) talking with their horses. Cicero ( Disp. Tusc.5. 115） fails to understand this natural craving on the part of the Cyclops for sympathy in his distress even from an animal, and notes how ‘Polyphemum Homerus cum immanem ferumque finxisset, cum ariete etiam colloquentem facit, eiusque laudare fortunas, quod qua vellet ingredi posset, et quae vellet attingere. Recte hic quidem. Nihilo enim erat ipse Cyclops quam aries ille prudentior.’ But Cicero's entire description of the scene is so unlike the Homeric picture, that we must either suppose that he had forgotten the original, or that he was confusing the story in Homer with the later account, perhaps, of some tragedian.

Homer's Odyssey. W. Walter Merry. James Riddell. D. B. Monro. Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1886-1901.

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