Enough of dead, and wives are husbandless, 290 And ancient women and grey fathers wail Their childless age;-if you should roast the rest,
And 'tis a bitter feast that you prepare,
Where then would any turn? Yet be persuaded;
Forego the lust of your jaw-bone; prefer
Pious humanity to wicked will:
Many have bought too dear their evil joys.
Let me advise you, do not spare a morsel 298 Of all his flesh. If you should eat his tongue You would become most eloquent, O Cyclops.
Wealth, my good fellow, is the wise man's God;
All other things are a pretence and boast.
What are my father's ocean promontories,
The sacred rocks whereon he dwells, to me?
Stranger, I laugh to scorn Jove's thunderbolt;
I know not that his strength is more than mine.
As to the rest I care not:-When he pours
Rain from above, I have a close pavilion
Under this rock, in which I lie supine,
Feasting on a roast calf or some wild beast, 310
And drinking pans of milk, and gloriously
Emulating the thunder of high heaven.
And when the Thracian wind pours down the
I wrap my body in the skins of beasts,
Kindle a fire, and bid the snow whirl on.
The earth, by force, whether it will or no,
Bringing forth grass, fattens my flocks and
herds,
Which, to what other God but to myself
And this great belly, first of deities,
Should I be bound to sacrifice? I well know
The wise man's only Jupiter is this,
To eat and drink during his little day,
And give himself no care. And as for those
Who complicate with laws the life of man,
I freely give them tears for their reward.
I will not cheat my soul of its delight,
Or hesitate in dining upon you:-
And that I may be quit of all demands,
These are my hospitable gifts;-fierce fire
And yon ancestral cauldron, which o'er-
bubbling
Shall finely cook your miserable flesh.
Creep in!
Ai! ai! I have escaped the Trojan toils,
I have escaped the sea, and now I fall
Under the cruel grasp of one impious man.
O Pallas, mistress, Goddess, sprung from Jove,
Now, now, assist me! Mightier toils than Troy
Are these ;-I totter on the chasms of peril ;-
And thou [too] who inhabitest the thrones
Of the bright stars, look, hospitable Jove, 340
Upon this outrage of thy deity;
Otherwise be considered as no God!
For your gaping gulph and your gullet wide The ravin is ready on every side,
The limbs of the strangers are cooked and done, There is boiled meat, and roast meat, and
You may chop it, and tear it, and gnash it for
An hairy goat's-skin contains the whole. Let me but escape, and ferry me o'er The stream of your wrath to a safer shore. 350 The Cyclops Etnean is cruel and bold, He murders the strangers That sit on his hearth, And dreads no avengers
To rise from the earth.
He roasts the men before they are cold,
He snatches them broiling from the coal,
And from the cauldron pulls them whole,
And minces their flesh and gnaws their bone
With his cursèd teeth, till all be gone.
Farewell, foul pavilion:
Farewell, rites of dread!
The Cyclops vermilion,
With slaughter uncloying,
Now feasts on the dead,
In the flesh of strangers joying!
O Jupiter! I saw within the cave
Horrible things; deeds to be feigned in words, But not to be believed as being done.
What! sawest thou the impious Polypheme Feasting upon your loved companions now?
Selecting two, the plumpest of the crowd,
He grasped them in his hands.-
Soon as we came into this craggy place,
Kindling a fire, he cast on the broad hearth
The knotty limbs of an enormous oak,
Three waggon-loads at least, and then he strewed
Upon the ground, beside the red fire-light,
His couch of pine leaves; and he milked the
And pouring forth the white milk, filled a bowl
Three cubits wide and four in depth, as much 381
As would contain ten amphora, and bound it
With ivy wreaths; then placed upon the fire
A brazen pot to boil, and made red hot
The points of spits, not sharpened with the
sickle,
But with a fruit-tree bough, and with the jaws
Of axes for Ætnean slaughterings.1
And when this God-abandoned cook of hell
Had made all ready, he seized two of us
And killed them in a kind of measured manner;
For he flung one against the brazen rivets 391
Of the huge cauldron, and seized the other
By the foot's tendon, and knocked out his brains
Upon the sharp edge of the craggy stone:
Then peeled his flesh with a great cooking-knife
And put him down to roast. The other's limbs
He chopped into the cauldron to be boiled.
And I, with the tears raining from my eyes,
Stood near the Cyclops, ministering to him;
The rest, in the recesses of the cave,
Clung to the rock like bats, bloodless with fear.
When he was filled with my companions' flesh,
He threw himself upon the ground and sent
A loathsome exhalation from his maw.
1 I confess I do not understand this.
Then a divine thought came to me.
The cup of Maron, and I offered him
To taste, and said:"Child of the Ocean God,
Behold what drink the vines of Greece produce,
The exultation and the joy of Bacchus."
He, satiated with his unnatural food,
Received it, and at one draught drank it off,
And taking my hand, praised me:- "Thou
hast given
A sweet draught after a sweet meal, dear guest."
And I perceiving that it pleased him, filled
Another cup, well knowing that the wine
Would wound him soon and take a sure revenge.
And the charm fascinated him, and I
Plied him cup after cup, until the drink
Had warmed his entrails, and he sang aloud
In concert with my wailing fellow-seamen 420
A hideous discord-and the cavern rung.
I have stolen out, so that if you will
You may achieve my safety and your own.
But say, do you desire, or not, to fly
This uncompanionable man, and dwell
As was your wont among the Grecian Nymphs
Within the fanes of your beloved God?
Your father there, within agrees to it,
But he is weak and overcome with wine,
And caught as if with bird-lime by the cup, 430
He claps his wings and crows in doting joy.
You who are young escape with me, and find
Bacchus your ancient friend; unsuited he
To this rude Cyclops.
That I could see that day, and leave for ever
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