Book 9 of the Odyssey is all about Odysseus recounting what's happened to him since he first set off to fight the Trojan War ten years ago. He recounts his journey to Alcinous and the Phaeacians, who now know the story of Odysseus. who he is, tells them all of his adventures, where he first set out to Troy, won the war, conquered it, but his army decided that just wasn't enough. They went to another city to loot and to pillage.
Odysseus told them that they shouldn't stay very long, but they ignored him. They ended up falling victims to a counterattack by the inhabitants of the city. Driven back to the ocean, the winds drove them off course and found them stranded on the island of the lotus eaters.
Almost like opium addicts, when his crew began to eat the lotus flowers, they became lazy and complacent, forgetting their memories at home and not wanting to do anything else but loaf around. What Odysseus recalls now is that next is an integral part of the book. In fact, it's what set him up with all these problems in the first place.
He and his crew, the ones that he's managed to scrape off Lotus Eater Island, have encountered Polyphemus the Cyclops, a one-eyed giant who traps them in a cave. After drinking a lot of his really great wine that Odysseus offers him and eating a bunch of his men, the Cyclops asks Odysseus'name. Odysseus lies, saying, My name is Nobody.
The Cyclops then promises Odysseus a gift. He will eat him last. Odysseus schemes.
How can he and his men escape this cave with a giant boulder in front? They decide to sharpen a spear and stab the Cyclops in the eye as he sleeps. While he's waking up, he begins screaming out, and the other Cyclopses in the area begin to yell, Who's killing you?
Who's killing you? Polyphemus, the Cyclops that's trapped them, says, Nobody, nobody is killing me. How he fell for it, it's the oldest trick in the book. After this happens, Odysseus and his men are able to disguise themselves underneath some of the Cyclops'giant sheep, escaping the cave when he removes the boulder.
Once he's leaving, he yells out to the Cyclops, If anyone asks who blinded you, tell them it was Odysseus of Ithaca. It is this terrible turn of hubris that ends up seeing the Cyclops Praying to his father, Poseidon, and telling him, don't let Odysseus go home. Odysseus's flaws of being prone to hubris and to temptation come out here, both as his crew encounters the lotus eaters and as he demands hospitality and gifts from the Cyclops, in turn yelling out that it was he who blinded him, giving himself up and creating all this trouble in the first place.