Cyclops by Euripides — Read

A comical burlesque on the Polyphemus and Odysseus story narrated in Book Nine of Homer's Odyssey, Cyclops is the only complete satyr play that has survived from antiquity. Satyr plays were a form of tragicomedy, featuring choruses of satyrs and events of mock drunkenness, brazen sexuality, pranks and general merriment. Satyric drama was one of the three varieties of Athenian drama, the other two being tragedy and comedy. In the Athenian Dionysia, each playwright customarily entered four plays into the competition: three tragedies and one satyr play to be performed either at the end of the festival or between the second and third tragedies of a trilogy, as comic relief to break the oppression of hours of gloomy tragedy. Satyr plays were usually very short, being half the duration of a tragedy.

In Cyclops Euripides portrays Odysseus as having lost his way on the voyage home from the Trojan War. He and his weary crew land their boats in Sicily at Mount Aetna, which is inhabited by the fabled one-eyed monsters, the Cyclopes. On the island, the men come upon the Satyrs and their father Silenus, who have been separated from their god Dionysus and enslaved by a Cyclops. These characters are not contained in Homer's version of the myth, providing much of the play's humour due to their cowardly and drunken behaviour.