(12) The context of Vulcan's workshop was a standard epic topos by Statius's time, and the
Cyclopes who help create the necklace are characterized as docti maiora, a fairly clear metapoetical allusion to the large-scale epic descriptions in Homer, Vergil, and others.
But there are other times, as with the sacred cattle, the lotus blossoms, and the
Cyclopes' food, when we can't help but eat, to our great sorrow....
What saves Odysseus is not violence alone but the trick he thinks up, which requires for its execution every defining human characteristic we are told the
Cyclopes lack.
It is self-cannibalism rather than being a form of "endocannibalism" a rare affective gesture observed by some modern anthropologists.' At least the foolish
Cyclopes do not eat their own.
Identifying Ara as the celestial altar commissioned by Zeus and constructed by the
Cyclopes, the Catasterismi also explained that Ara was the sacred spot where Zeus and the other Olympians pledged their commitment to their alliance against the Titans, the previous generation of gods.
In a scene in the show entitled "The Lemnian Forge," Dekker sets the world of the Ironmongers in the mythological frame of Vulcan's workshop; as they hammer iron on anvils, Vulcan and his
Cyclopes sing a song.
Homer thoroughly describes the barren and wasted landscape of the
Cyclopes (another similarity with Tolkien's setting for the scene, Mordor), but says nothing about a volcano.
The island on which Polyphemus and the other
Cyclopes live is fertile, but they do not till it.
MINOTAURS,
CYCLOPES AND GORGONS PROVIDE THE PROVING GROUND for mythic overachievers, serving as adversaries against which they can measure and define themselves.
TABLA II MAMIFEROS REGISTRADOS EN LOS DIFERENTES ECOSISTEMAS EVALUADOS EN CINCO AREAS PILOTO DEL DELTA DEL ORINOCO (PROYECTO VEN/99/G31) Areas Piloto Taxa / Unidad ecologica Gremio AP1 AP2 Br He Bp Marsupialia Didelphidae Didelphis marsupialis (1,2,3) COSA E E * Lutreolina crassicaudata COTE E Marmosa murina (4,5) IOSA Metachirus nudicaudatus IOTE Micoureus demerarae (5,6) IOSA Philander opossum (7) IOSA Xenarthra Bradypodidae Bradypus tridactylus (2) Megalonychidae Choloepus didactylus E Myrmecophagidae
Cyclopes didactylus E Myrmecophaga tridactyla E E E Tamandua tetrudactyla E E E Dasypodidae * Dasypus novemcinctus Chiroptera Emballonuridae Cormura brevirostris (8) IABD A * Diclidurus isabellus (9) IZCA 1/A * Diclidurus sp.