Lestrygonians: Homeric Parallel

In Book 10 of The Odyssey, Odysseus recounts his disappointing adventures with Aeolus, the wind king (see headnote to Aeolus); rebuffed by Aeolus, Odysseus and his men take to the sea once more. They reach the island of the Lestrygonians, where all the ships except Odysseus's anchor in a "curious bay" (10:87; Fitzgerald, p. 180) circled "with mountain walls of stone" (10:88; Fitzgerald, p. 180). Odysseus cannily anchors "on the sea side" (10:95-96; Fitzgerald, p. 180). A shore party from the ships anchored in the bay is lured by a "stalwart / young girl" (10:105-6; Fitzgerald, p. 180) to the lodge of her father, Antiphates, king of the Lestrygonians. The king turns out to be a giant and a cannibal, who promptly eats one of the shore party and then leads his tribe in the destruction of all the landlocked ships and the slaughter of their crews. Only Odysseus and his crew escape -- to Circe's island.

(from Don Gifford with Robert J. Seidman, "Ulysses" Annotated: Notes for James Joyce's "Ulysses" [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988], p. 156. The first numbers following quotes from The Odyssey [for example, 1:115] refer to book and line numbers in the Greek text; English translations, unless otherwise noted, are from The Odyssey, translated by Robert Fitzgerald [New York: Doubleday, 1961])