For the Cyclops have no ships with crimson prows,
no shipwrights there to build them good trim craft
that could sail them out to foreign ports of call
as most men risk the seas to trade with other men.
Such artisans would have made this island too
a decent place to live in.
– Homer
The Odyssey, Book 9, lines 138-143. Odysseus contrasts the Cyclops to the Phaeacians, a nation of master seafarers. Unlike the people of Phaeacia, the Cyclops have no ships or skilled shipbuilders which would allow them to sail to foreign lands to trade with other people. Odysseus will shortly learn how vastly different the Cylops are to humans when he encounters the cannibalistic Polyphemus.