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THE CYCLOPS:

A SATYRIC DRAMA.1

TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK OF EURIPIDES.

SILENUS.

CHORUS OF SATYRS.
ULYSSES.

THE CYCLOPS.

SILENUS.

O, BACCHUS, what a world of toil, both now And ere these limbs were overworn with age, Have I endured for thee! First, when thou fled'st

The mountain-nymphs who nursed thee, driven afar

By the strange madness Juno sent upon thee;
Then in the battle of the sons of Earth,
When I stood foot by foot close to thy side,
No unpropitious fellow-combatant,

And driving through his shield my winged

spear,

The translation of The Cyclops, though made from a defective text and never finally revised, is a masterpiece in its way. Mr. Swinburne did some admirable work in connexion with it, supplying omissions and substituting correct translations from a good text for readings of an inferior text. A full account of the matter is given in the foot-notes in my library edition.—ED.

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Slew vast Enceladus. Consider now,
Is it a dream of which I speak to thee?
By Jove it is not, for you have the trophies!
And now I suffer more than all before.
For when I heard that Juno had devised
A tedious voyage for you, I put to sea
With all my children quaint in search of you,
And I myself stood on the beaked prow
And fixed the naked mast, and all my boys,
Leaning upon their oars, with splash and strain
Made white with foam the green and purple

sea,

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And so we sought you, king. We were sailing
Near Malea, when an eastern wind arose,
And drove us to this wild Ætnean rock;
The one-eyed children of the Ocean God,
The man-destroying Cyclopses inhabit,
On this wild shore, their solitary caves,
And one of these, named Polypheme, has
caught us

To be his slaves; and so, for all delight
Of Bacchic sports, sweet dance and melody,
We keep this lawless giant's wandering flocks.
My sons indeed, on far declivities,

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Young things themselves, tend on the youngling sheep,

But I remain to fill the water-casks,

Or sweeping the hard floor, or ministering
Some impious and abominable meal
To the fell Cyclops. I am wearied of it!
And now I must scrape up the littered floor
With this great iron rake, so to receive
My absent master and his evening sheep
In a cave neat and clean. Even now I

see

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My children tending the flocks hitherward.
Ha! what is this? are your Sicinnian measures

Even now the same, as when with dance and

song

You brought young Bacchus to Althea's halls ?

CHORUS OF SATYRS.

STROPHE.

Where has he of race divine
Wandered in the winding rocks?
Here the air is calm and fine
For the father of the flocks ;-
Here the grass is soft and sweet,
And the river-eddies meet
In the trough beside the cave,
Bright as in their fountain wave.—
Neither here, nor on the dew

Of the lawny uplands feeding?
Oh, you come !-a stone at you

Will I throw to mend your breeding;Get along, you horned thing,

Wild, seditious, rambling!

EPODE.

An Iacchic melody

To the golden Aphrodite

Will I lift, as erst did I

Seeking her and her delight

With the Mænads, whose white feet

To the music glance and fleet.
Bacchus, O beloved, where,
Shaking wide thy yellow hair,
Wanderest thou alone, afar?
To the one-eyed Cyclops, we,
Who by right thy servants are,
Minister in misery,

In these wretched goat-skins clad,
Far from thy delights and thee.

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60

70

SILENUS.

Be silent, sons; command the slaves to drive The gathered flocks into the rock-roofed cave.

CHORUS.

Go! But what needs this serious haste, O father?

SILENUS.

I see a Grecian vessel on the coast,

And thence the rowers with some general Approaching to this cave.-About their necks Hang empty vessels, as they wanted food,

And water-flasks.-O, miserable strangers! 80 Whence come they, that they know not what and who

My master is, approaching in ill hour
The inhospitable roof of Polypheme,
And the Cyclopian jaw-bone, man-destroying?
Be silent, Satyrs, while I ask and hear
Whence coming, they arrive the Ætnean hill.

ULYSSES.

Friends, can you show me some clear waterspring,

The remedy of our thirst? Will any one
Furnish with food seamen in want of it?
Ha! what is this? We seem to be arrived 90
At the blithe court of Bacchus. I observe
This sportive band of Satyrs near the caves.
First let me greet the elder.-Hail !

SILENUS.

Hail thou,

O, Stranger! tell thy country and thy race.

ULYSSES.

The Ithacan Ulysses and the king

Of Cephalonia.

SILENUS.

Oh! I know the man,

Wordy and shrewd, the son of Sisyphus.

ULYSSES.

I am the same; but do not rail upon me.

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The strength of tempests bore me here by force.

SILENUS.

The self-same accident occurred to me.

ULYSSES.

Were you then driven here by stress of weather?

SILENUS.

Following the Pirates who had kidnapped Bacchus.

ULYSSES.

What land is this, and who inhabit it?

SILENUS.

Ætna, the loftiest peak in Sicily.

ULYSSES.

And are there walls, and tower-surrounded

towns?

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