Abstract

Odysseus has just entered the acting area following the choral song, during which he witnessed the Cyclops butchering, cooking and then eating two of his companions. In these lines Odysseus seemingly presents himself as being at a loss for words, and claims that what he witnessed inside the cave is not to be believed. These are, of course, nothing more than rhetorical ploys, with frequent parallels in Euripides and elsewhere. When Odysseus says οὐ πιστά he means not that what he is about to recount lacks credibility—he does, after all, expect the satyrs to accept his account as reliable—but that it surpasses the bounds of ordinary human experience. And the account that follows belies his apparent profession of being at a loss for words, since he is about to deliver what is in effect a messenger-speech of over fifty lines. Expressions of aphasia are common in Euripides, sometimes accompanied, as here, by lengthy exposition. Characters use such expressions to indicate that the circumstances in which they find themselves are beyond the power of language to convey. There is, therefore, something discordant in Odysseus immediately following his expression of aphasia by saying that what he has witnessed is ‘like stories’, especially when he is about to tell the story of the circumstances in which he finds himself. It is the purpose of this note to suggest that the words μύθοις εἰκότ’ have been universally misunderstood, and that Odysseus is here saying something quite other than that the events in the cave have a greater resemblance to stories than to reality.