From hence it came that in the Olympic Games, where the poets
contended for four prizes, the satiric tragedy was the last of them,
for in the rest the Satyrs were excluded from the chorus. Amongst
the plays of Euripides which are yet remaining, there is one of
these satirics, which is called The Cyclops, in which we may see the
nature of those poems, and from thence conclude what likeness they
have to the Roman satire.
The story of this Cyclops, whose name was Polyphemus (so famous in
the Grecian fables), was that Ulysses, who with his company was
driven on the coast of Sicily, where those Cyclops inhabited, coming
to ask relief from Silenus and the Satyrs, who were herdsmen to that
one-eyed giant, was kindly received by them, and entertained till,
being perceived by Polyphemus, they were made prisoners against the
rites of hospitality (for which Ulysses eloquently pleaded), were
afterwards put down into the den, and some of them devoured; after
which Ulysses (having made him drunk when he was asleep) thrust a
great fire-brand into his eye, and so revenging his dead followers
escaped with the remaining party of the living, and Silenus and the
Satyrs were freed from their servitude under Polyphemus and remitted
to their first liberty of attending and accompanying their patron
Bacchus.
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