Book IX

THEN unto him subtle-witted Odysseus in answer spoke:
“Lord King Alcinous, high-renowned among all earth-folk,
Ah ’tis a glorious thing to list to the high lay ringing
From the lips of a bard till it sounds as the Gods out of heaven were singing.
For I ween there is naught more sweet that a man may attain unto
Than when there is mirth and delight the whole glad nation through,
And the banqueters sitting arow in the halls of the palace hear
The march of magnificent song, and the tables are loaded with cheer,
And the eyes of the red wine gleam as the cupbearer draweth it out
Of the mazer, and filleth the cups of the guests as he bears it about.
Sweetest and fairest of all such a lot to my soul doth appear.
But thine heart hath been moved to enquire of my cares and my sorrow and pain,
To the end I may mourn yet more, and groan with remembrance again.
Of which of them all shall I tell thee the first?—of which speak last?
So many the Heaven-abiders.have dealt me in days overpast.
First will I tell you my name, that ye also may know it, and then,
When I ’scape from the pitiless day and the net for my life that was cast,
I shall still be your guest, though my dwelling be far from Phaeacian men.
Odysseus the son of Laertes am I, whom all men know
For my crafty wiles, and the fame of me high as the heavens doth go.
In Ithaca dwell I, the beautiful isle, and a mountain therein,
Neritus, waveth his forests, far over the waters seen;
And around it is many another isle, to each other anigh,
Dulichium, Same, Zakynthus clothed with her mantle green.
But this, the utmost of all, low down in the sea doth lie
To westward,—the rest look away to the sun and the dayspring sky:—
Rugged enow, but of heroes a kindly nursing-mother.
Ah, sweeter than that dear land shall I verily find none other!
Yea, Calypso the Goddess divine long time by her side kept me
In her hollow caves, being fain that her husband there I would be.
So too did the cunning Circe essay in her fairy-house
In Aeaea to keep me, longing to have me for aye her spouse.
But never they overpersuaded mine heart to consent to their will,
For sweeter than all things else are country and parents still.
Though a man in a strange land dwell ’neath a palace’s stately dome,
Afar from his parents, ever he dreameth of home, sweet home.
But come, if thou wilt, of this weariful home-quest now will I tell,
Which Zeus laid upon me at setting forth, when Troy-town fell.
With the breeze that from Ilium carried us nigh the Ciconians we drew,
And Ismarus town we harried, the men thereof we slew;
And their wives, and a booty fair that we gathered from every side
Out of the town, did we share together, and fairly divide.
And then did I counsel my men to flee swift-footed away;
Fools, fools were they all, for then they would nowise hear nor obey:
But there by the strand would they stay to quaff long draughts of wine,
And many a sheep to slay, with trail-foot wreath-horned kine.
But the folk that had scattered in flight went crying the gathering-cry
Through the dim land all through the night unto others that dwelt anigh,
Which were more in number than they, and mightier men in the fray,
The inland folk, who know full well with the battle-steed
To close in the fight with the foe, and on foot to meet them at need.
And countless as leaves they appeared, or as flowers in the spring that blow,
At the break of the day, and our weird was to suffer full many a woe;
For the hand of Zeus that day was against us ill-starred men.
And they set the fight in array on the shore by the swift ships then:
And hurling on either side with the brazen lances we fought.
And all through the morning-tide, and still while the day waxed hot,
Ever we kept them at bay, for all that so many they were,
Till the sun was sloping his ray to the hour for unyoking the steer;
But the foe had the mastery then, and they turned the Achaeans to flight:
And of each ship six good men returned not again that night;
But the rest of us fled from destruction dread and the death ready-dight.
Then stood we out to sea, full dismally leaving the coast,
Glad from the death to flee, yet grieving for comrades lost.
But or ever the keels ran out to the offing, we turned to the shore,
Thrice raising the farewell shout to those we should see nevermore,
Whom death in the plain did meet, with Ciconian men as they fought.
But the Gatherer of clouds on the fleet the might of the north-wind brought;
And it waxed till a hurricane roared, and masses of cloud on-driven
O’er the land and the sea were poured, and night rushed down from the heaven.
And the prows, plunging heavily under the surge, drove: then each sail
Banged, cracked and ripped asunder by stress of the terrible gale:
But we furled, and below we stowed them, in dread death’s clutch to feel;
And with might and main we rowed to the shore, till we beached each keel.
Two nights without respite there, two days were we forced to remain,
Eating our hearts with care, and with grief, and with weariness-pain.
But at last, when the third morn shook bright tresses abroad, dew-shedding,
We hoisted the mast, and we took the white sails up, and spreading
Our canvas forth, sat still, with the wind and the helmsman to steer.
And now without more ill had I come to my fatherland dear,
But in rounding Maleia there caught us a cross-sea-current, and shifted
Our course, and the north-wind fought us, and wide of Cythera we drifted.
Thence nine days did we sweep before winds that were hungry to slay
Over the fishful deep, till we came on the tenth sad day
To the Lotos-eaters’ land, on the flower-like dainty who feed.
There went we forth on the strand, and water we drew for our need:
And a meal each crew soon spread on the shore by the swift ship’s hull.
But when we had eaten the bread, and had drunk of the wine to the full,
Then I sent of my comrades away to the folk of the land, to find
What manner of men were they, of the earth’s corn-eating kind.
And I chose two men for the quest, and with them a herald I sent;
And leaving with speed the rest, to the Lotos-eaters they went.
And the Lotos-eaters thought no mischief against those three;
Only unto them they brought of the fruit of the Lotos-tree:
And whoe’er of the fruit honey-sweet once tasted, desired never more
Again to bring word to the fleet, or return to his fatherland-shore.
But with Lotos-eaters for aye did the poor wretch earnestly yearn
Plucking the Lotos to stay, and forgetting his home-return. TOO
But I dragged them down to the sea, looking backward, and bitterly crying,
Till we had the infatuate three bound, under the ship-thwarts lying.
And fearing that others yet might eat, and their country forget,
The rest of my trusty band I bade no longer to stay,
But to hurry down to the strand, and embark, and to hasten away.
So they gat them each to his ship, and they sat them down to the stroke,
And the sea with the orderly dip of the blades into hoar foam broke.
So we left that perilous strand, heart-anguished sailing away;
And we came to the Cyclopes’ land: overweening and lawless be they.
For the morrow they take no care, but they look to the Gods, and so
Never they drive the share, neither plant that the herb may grow:
But neither with sowing of seed nor ploughing come all things there;
They have barley and corn at their need, and the vines untended bear
Heavy-clustered the flame-faced wine, swelled out by the rains of Zeus.
And they have no laws divine, neither folkmotes wont they to use:
And fellowship love they not, but high on the mountains they live,
Each in his hollow grot, and to children and wives they give
Wild law, and they mind not for joys of their kind, neither reck when they grieve.
Off the place where the high coast trends in, making a goodly bay,
A lone waste island extends, not anigh, neither far away,
Wooded, and wild goats stray through the copses, a countless host,
For no man cometh to fray them there on the lonely coast.
No huntsmen set foot on the shore, such as they that the wood-game rouse
And drive with labour sore high up to the mountain-brows.
No herds in its pastures graze, no shares through the furrows go,
But ever from olden days it hath none to plough it or sow;
But the wild goats bleat, and their restless feet roam high, roam low.
For not by the Cyclopes’ strand do the red-cheeked galleys ride:
No shipwrights cunning of hand amongst them are found, to provide
Galleys with swinging oars, at the giants’ pleasure to go
Unto cities on far-off shores, as other men wont to do,
When for fellowship’s sake far journeys they take o’er the sea to and fro.
Yea too, of such men that isle had been made into tilth-land fair;
For the place hath a fruitful soil, all things in their season to bear:
Yea, in it are meadows hard by the shores of the hoary sea,
Well-watered, with deep rich sward: undecaying the vines would be.
Full smooth for the plough is the ground, rich harvests ye thence might reap,
Ever as years come round, for fat is the soil and deep.
And the haven,—no need that on land the hawsers be fast secured,
Nor that anchors sleep on the sand, for the ship needeth not to be moored;
But ye beach the galley, and still shall she safely there remain
Till such time as the mariners will, and the fair breeze bloweth again.
And right at the haven’s head from a cave doth a fountain flow
Bright-flashing adown its bed, and around it the poplars grow.
So we sailed in there forthright, and a God was our guide, I ween,
Through the folds of the black dark night, for nothing might there be seen;
For now did a thick mist lie all round the ships as they sailed,
Neither shone the moon from the sky, but with clouds was the face of her veiled.
And none of us all with his eyes the island ahead of us spied,
Nor marked long rollers arise with the landward sweep of the tide,
Till—a shock, and a rasping sound,—and the galleys were high on the beach.
And so, when the ships were aground, we furled the sails of each,
And down from the black hulls stept, and along the shore we lay;
And heavily there we slept, and awaited the coming of day.
When the Rosy-fingered, the Dawn, from her mist-hung couch did arise,
We wandered by woodland and lawn through the island with wondering eyes;
And the Daughters of that Cloud-king who tosseth the Aegis on high
Roused for our banqueting the goats on the mountains that lie.
And straight from the ships took we curved bows and javelins good,
And we parted our band in three, and we followed the chase through the wood.
And abundance of wildwood meat did the good Gods send us there:
Twelve were the ships of my fleet, and they all had an equal share;
Nine goats each had for a prey, and myself had ten for my prize.
And so through the livelong day, till the sun sank out of the skies,
Sat we feasting upon sweet wine and on meats untold;
For the wine was not yet gone that was stowed in the black ship’s hold,
Because we had borne away good store in the earth-jars brown
With the rest of the spoil, on the day that we sacked the Ciconians’ town.
And then did we cast our eyes to the Cyclopes’ land lying near,
And we saw smoke-wreaths, men’s cries and bleating of flocks did we hear.
So the sun gave place in the skies for the wings of the night to arise,
And there we slept where the ripples crept to the murmuring shore,
Till rosy-fingered the sweet Dawn lingered mid mists no more.
Then I gathered my men together, and spake, in the midst as I stood:
‘Tarry ye here awhile, my trusty companions good:
But I will go with my ship and only my crew with me
Unto yonder coast, and find what manner of men they be,
Whether savage and brutal of mood, a justice-scorning kind,
Or lovers of strangers, and bearing the fear of the Gods in mind.’
So down to the galley I hied, and my mates did I there command
To climb the black ship’s side, and to cast her off from the strand.
So they entered up into the ship, and they sat them down to the stroke,
And the sea with the orderly dip of the blades into hoar foam broke.
Full soon passing over the wave we came to the unknown land;
And there we espied a cave close down by the white sea-strand,
With laurels climbing the steep sides up to the roof’s dim height:
There numberless goats and sheep were wont to be housed for the night.
And around was a lofty wall of stones in the earth deep-pressed,
Encompassed with pine-trees tall, and with oak-trees stately-tressed.
There a giant was wont to sleep: through the days he wandered alone
Tending the flocks of his sheep; and fellowship had he with none;
For his dwelling still would he sunder from all, and he recked not of right
In his heart, and his frame was a wonder, gigantic and grim to the sight,
Not like to the sons of men, but seeming a forest-clad crest
Of high bleak mountains, when it is chasm-rent from the rest.
Then did I straitly command the rest of my comrades to bide
Guarding the ship on the strand by the lazy wash of the tide.
But I chose me the best of my band, twelve good men valiant and true,
And I went, with a skin in my hand full of sweet wine purple of hue,
Which Maron, Evanthes’ son, the priest of Apollo’s shrine
That high over Ismarus shone to win it protection divine,
Had given me for sparing his life along with his child and his wife;—
Out of reverence we did it, because that he dwelt mid the grove of trees
Where the fane of Apollo was;—and he gave great gifts, even these—
Seven talents by weight of gold he gave, well-purified,
And a bowl of costly mould, all silver: yea, and beside
The choicest of all his wine into twelve great jars did he pour,
Untempered, a drink divine: none knew of the precious store;
Not a serving-man nor a maid was found in his house that knew,
But he and his wife, and the staid old stewardess, tried and true.
And, in drinking the honey-sweet treasure of wine with its rose-flushed hue,
Ever they poured one measure, but twenty of water thereto,
And sweetly arose from the bowl the breath of a perfume divine:
Then would it vex thy soul to abstain from the rich rare wine.
Thereof a great goat-skin, and food in a wallet we brought,
For now, mine heart within, on a sudden arose the thought
That the dweller in that lone spot was gigantic and clothed with might,
And savage, and caring not for justice at all, nor for right.
So we came to the cavern with speed, but therein we beheld not its master,
For gone was he thence to feed his goats on the mountain-pasture.
So we entered, and then at our ease did we gaze upon all things there.
There were rush-crates heavy with cheese, and crowded pens there were
Of lambs and of kids, each kind full heedfully kept asunder,
For the firstlings here were confined, and the later-born penned yonder;
And yonder the new-yeaned lay; and every pail and pan
And bowl was o’erflowing with whey, milked full by the salvage man.
Then did my shipmates come around me, and earnestly pray
That we first should bear off some of the cheeses, and hasten away,
And thereafter should drive from the pens the kidlings and lambs, and bestow
The flock in the galley, and thence o’er the ridges of brine should go.
But I would not heed them or hear,—O, but this had been well for us then!—
But would look on the cave-man’s face, and receive guest-gifts of his grace:
Ah me, he was not to appear for a sight of joy to my men!
So we lighted a fire, and we gave to the Gods the portion befitting.
And we ate of the cheese in the cave; and there we awaited him sitting,
Till he came thither, driving his sheep, and wood on his shoulder he bare,
A huge, a measureless heap, his supper therewith to prepare.
And he cast it down therewithin, with a crash and a rattling shock;
And in terror we fled to screen ourselves in a nook of the rock.
And his fat beasts into the cave, the monstrous mountain-cleft,
Even all that he milked, he drave; but the males outside he left,
The rams and the he-goats all, without the high court-wall.
And a rough-hewn rock did he lift, and over the cave’s mouth drew,
A mass for a giant to shift, not broad wains twenty and two,
Each straining with stout wheels four, such a weight from its place could drag,
As blackened the cavern door at his touch, that rugged crag.
And he sat him down, and drew from each of the bleating dams
The milk in order due, and put under them kidlings or lambs.
And he curdled half of the white milk, filling the bowls straightway;
And he gathered and pressed it tight, and in baskets of rush did he lay.
But he set aside to stand in pails the uncurdled half,
Ready prepared to his hand when he supped, to take and to quaff.
But when he had sped through his toil, and accomplished his labours thus,
He kindled the great wood-pile, and espied us, and questioned us:
‘Who are ye, strangers, and whence have ye sailed o’er the ways of the sea?
Are ye such as fare upon traffic, or wander ye recklessly
Over the waves, as they that go roving, a pirate band,
Risking their lives, bringing mischief to men of an alien land? ‘
So he spake, but our very soul was shaken with ghastly affright
At his voice’s thunder-roll, and his monstrous bulk and height:
Yet I gathered my strength, and made answer at length, as well as I might:
‘Achaeans are we, that from Troy as we came were beaten away
By baffling winds from our course o’er the gulfs of the sea to stray;
Home were we bound, but were driven by ways that we knew not of,
And pathless paths: so was it decreed by the Gods above.
And the folk of the son of Atreus, of King Agamemnon, we are:
Of all men that live under heaven his glory is highest far;
So great is the town he hath ta’en, so many he slew in the war.
But now, behold, unto thee be we come, at thy knees do we bow,
If perchance thou wouldst give us the guest-due, or haply bestow on us now
Some gift beside of thy bounty, since gifts are the stranger’s right.
Respect thou the Gods, for thy suppliants are we, O chiefest in might.
Avenger of strangers and suppliants Zeus evermore hath been,
The Guest-ward; still by the sacred stranger he walketh unseen.’
Straight in his ruthless mood did the giant answer, and say:
‘Stranger, thou sure art a fool, or hast come from far away,
Who biddest me fear the Gods, or for dread of their anger spare.
Naught for thine Aegis-bearer, for Zeus, do the Cyclopes care,
Nor yet for the blessed Gods: good sooth, far stronger are we.
Not to escape his hate would I show compassion to thee,
Nor yet to thy fellows, except as mine own soul prompted me.
But tell me, where have ye left your well-wrought ship on the strand?
On the uttermost part of the coast, or anywhere nigh at hand? ‘
So tempting he spake, but I knew too much to be trapped by his wile:
And I made reply thereto with ready-dissembling guile:
‘My ship Earth-shaker Poseidon shattered mid breaker-surge,
Hurling it on to the rocks at your land’s extremest verge,
Having brought it anigh to a headland: the wind swept in from the sea;
And with these men only from sheer destruction scarce could I flee.’
But he, the pitiless-hearted, answered me nothing then,
But all at once upstarted, and shot forth his hands at my men,
And together laid hold on twain, and dashed them against the ground
Like whelps: down gushed the brain, and bespattered the rock-floor round.
And limb from limb did he shred them, and horribly supped thereon
Like a mountain-lion dread, and he left of the flesh of them none,
Of the inwards and flesh of our dead, and the marrow with the bone.
And wailing and shuddering we raised hands unto Zeus in prayer,
That horrible deed to see; but our soul was filled with despair.
And when with the flesh and the blood of our friends that maw was filled,
Over his cursed food milk-draughts he swallowed and swilled.
Then stretched through the midst of the sheep in the cavern he sprawled asleep.
Then thought I, my heart within, full softly to steal more nigh,
And swiftly to draw the keen true blade from beside my thigh,
And to feel with mine hand for the part where the fence of his ribs left bare
The liver, and strike to his heart; but a new thought stayed me there:
For then had we perished by swift doom pent in the dark alone;
For in vain had we tried to shift from the high door that huge stone
Which we saw the monster lift so lightly, and set thereon.
So there we groaned and wept, and awaited the blessed morn.
When up from her mist-couch leapt the Rosy-fingered, the Dawn,
He kindled the fire, and he drew the milk from the bleating dams,
All as in order due, and put under them kidlings or lambs.
But when he had hastened through his work, and his toil was o’er,
Snatching at other two, he devoured them, even as before.
And after his feast he drave his goodly flocks from his den,
And the huge door-stone of the cave full lightly he moved, and then
Set it again, as ye move a quiver-lid, into its place:
And with whistling loud he drove his flock to the mountains to graze.
And I was left in there, dark-brooding a purpose grim,
If Athene would grant my prayer, to take some vengeance on him.
And there came a device to me then, as I mused upon every way.
Along by the side of a pen the club of the Cyclops lay,
Green wood of the olive, which he had cut and had laid to dry,
To make him a staff, and we made guess, as we saw it lie,
That such were the size of the mast of a galley of twenty oars
That beareth a freight full fast where the sea-gulf welters and roars,
So huge was its ponderous strength, so long, so thick, did it seem.
And now some fathom’s length did I cut from the mighty beam.
And then to my comrades I gave it, the bark thereof to strip:
And with care did they scrape it and shave it, the while I pointed the tip.
And thereafter I bare it with speed to the fire, and baked it dry,
And hid it away with good heed in the litter that chanced to lie
Thick-scattered by stall and pen all over the gloomy grot.
Then I commanded my men to choose of themselves by lot
Those that should dare, as I, to uplift on high the pole,
And to twist it around in his eye when sweet sleep over him stole.
And the lot fell even on those whom I would have wished for my need,
Four, and myself I chose for the fifth to adventure the deed.
Then came at the eventide that man-beast, herding his flock;
And he drave them all inside the cavern of rifted rock:
And now he left none of them all in the garth of the deep court-wall;
Something perchance he feared, or a God the difference made.
Then the vast stone door he upreared, and over the cave’s mouth laid.
And he sat him down, and he drew from each of the bleating dams
Their milk in order due, and put under them kidlings or lambs.
But when he had hastened through his work, and his toil was o’er,
Snatching at other two he devoured them, even as before.
Then I filled with the generous wine a rough-hewn wooden cup,
And drew near with the drink divine, and spake, as I lifted it up:
‘Take, Cyclops, drink of the wine, who hast eaten of man’s flesh thus,
And so shalt thou know what marvellous drink we carried with us
In our ship; a drink offering was this unto thee, if pitying me
Thou wouldst send me home: but desperate madness hath seized on thee.
Out on thee! who shall be found that again will come to thy land
Of all men else? for lawless are these the deeds of thine hand.’
So I spake, and he took it and quaffed, and he revelled with horrible glee
As he swallowed the precious draught, and he asked it again of me:
‘Give me again with speed, and straightway tell me thy name,
And so will I give thee a guest-gift, and thou shalt have joy of the same.
For in sooth in the Cyclopes’ land doth the wine abundantly flow
From clusters heavily-drooping, and Zeus’ rain maketh them grow:
But this—this is even a rill of ambrosia and nectar, I trow! ‘
So spake he, and I once more held forth to his lips the draught:
Three times at his bidding I bore, and thrice in his folly he quaffed.
And now had the fumes of the wine overclouded the Cyclops’ brain;
And straight with a deep design I spoke, but in gentlest strain:
‘Thou hast asked, O Cyclops, my name of renown: I will tell it to thee,
And then shalt thou give me the guest-gift, the which thou hast promised to me.
Noman am I, and Noman the name by the which they call
Thy guest, even father and mother, and merry companions all.’
So did I speak, and answer he made full pitilessly:
‘Noman after his fellows the last to be eaten shall be;
The others before him; and this is the guest-gift from me unto thee.’
Then the huge bulk reeled and stooped, and backward with heavy fall
Dropped, and the thick neck drooped aslant, and the conquerer of all,
Sleep, laid hold on his frame: wine-spirts from his throat did leap,
And gobbets of man’s flesh came, as he belched in his drunken sleep.
Then, then did I thrust beneath a heap of the embers the pole,
Till it glowed in the fire-god’s breath; and with brave words cheered the soul
Of each, that none might shirk his part in the desperate work.
But when the stake into flame would have burst in a little more,
Green wood as it was, and became of a fiery glow all o’er,
Then I snatched it out of the fire, and drew nigh, and my comrades stood
Around, and their courage rose higher, some God unto us being good.
Then, taking the stake, my men—right sharp was the fierce red tip!—
Plunged it into his eye: I held it above, and so
Whirled it around, as when one boreth the beam of a ship
With a drill, and his fellows ply the long strap to and fro,
As on either hand below him they stand, and it swiftly doth go.
Even so through his eye we crushed and we whirled the fire-tipped wood;
And around the hot stake gushed a fountain of hissing blood:
And singed by the fiery glow were eyelid and eyebrow around
The burning ball, and below at the roots was a crackling sound.
And as when in a smithy a man dippeth axe or adze he hath made
Loud hissing into the pan of water to temper the blade,—
For of such-like handicraft good shall the edge of the iron be found,—
So, as we plunged in the wood, was the eyeball hissing around.
And he yelled, and the cavern rang in thunder to that wild roar;
And backward in terror we sprang, as with frantic hands he tore
The torturing stake from his eye, and dripping in crimson spray
We saw the blood-gouts fly, as he dashed it madly away.
And the man-beast’s hideous yell pealed out through the startled night
To his fellows that round him dwell by windy ravine and height;
And they, as they heard his shout, came trooping from every side;
And, standing the cavern about, they asked of him wherefore he cried:
‘Polyphemus, what is thy grief that hath moved thee to clamour thus
Through the hush of the balmy night, and from sleep to awaken us?
Can it be that a mortal man is driving thy cattle away,
Or hath suddenly set upon thee by craft or by violence to slay? ‘
Then from the cavern rolled the mighty giant’s cry:
‘Friends, Noman slays me by cunning, and nowise by force do I die! ‘
Sped from their lips the light-winged words, as they answered him then:
‘If indeed it be no man that falls on thee here in thy lonely den,
We cannot escape the disease that Zeus the almighty doth bring.
But thou, put up thy prayer to thy father, Poseidon the king.’
So speaking, they turned them to leave him; and laughed mine heart for glee
To think that my name should deceive them, the cunning of no man save me.
But the Cyclops, with many a groan agonizing in anguish sore,
Groped with his hands, and the stone he thrust from the cavern door:
And he sat in the entrance to keep it, and spread his hands out wide
To catch whosoe’er with his sheep should essay to escape outside.
Such witless folly, I wis, he imputed to me in his breast!
But I straightway took counsel that this should all fall out for the best,
Devising how we should fly from destruction, I and my men.
And many a web wove I of cunning and stratagem then,
As a man for his life might well do, for ’neath death’s shadow we stood.
And so, as I mused, it befell that this thing seemed to be good:—
The rams of his flock were tall, and with fleeces heavy and full,
Broad-backed and comely withal, and with wealth of violet wool.
So these together I led, and with twisted withes did I bind—
They were strewn for the Cyclops’ bed, that monster of impious mind:—
Three by three were they tied, and the midmost bore below
A man, and on either side did the others shielding him go.
So was it, that three sheep bore a man: but the flower of them all
Was a ram, great-girthed far more than his fellows, stately and tall.
So I grasped his back, and below that shaggiest belly uprolled,
With mine hands laid hold on his vast deep fleece, and I gript it fast;
And I held on, shrouded so, untiringly, patient-souled.
So a weary vigil we kept, and we sighed for the lingering morn.
When up from her mist-couch leapt the Rosy-fingered, the Dawn,
Forth to the free fresh air the rams rushed, pasture-bound;
But the ewes still bleated there to be milked, the pens around,
For their udders were heavy and strained; but their lord, still agony-pained,
Laid his hands on the backs of the sheep as they passed him, feeling their wool,
Thinking that so he would keep the pass; but he knew not,—fool!—
That under a woolly breast to a foe free passage he gave.
Then, after all the rest, came his ram to the door of the cave,
Oppressed by his fleece’s mass and the weight of the wisdom in me:
Over him did the giant pass his hands, saying dolefully:
‘Bonny ram, how is this, that thou comest to-day to the cavern-door
Last of the sheep?—thou hast not been wont to be laggard before.
But first before all to graze on the soft meadow-grass dost thou go,
Stark-striding, and first art thou wont to come to the river’s flow,
And first to the folding dost long to return at the evenfall.
But to-day, bonny ram, how is this?—thou art even the last of all!
Dost thou grieve for the eye of thy lord, whom a villain hath now made blind,
Even he and his pitiful mates, with wine overcoming my mind?
Noman—ah, but not yet is he out of destruction’s reach!
But if thou couldst know my thoughts, but if thou wert gifted with speech,
Thou wouldst tell to me—wouldst thou not?—where he slinketh away from my might;
Oh then should his brains fly spattered about to left and to right
O’er the ground, as I dashed him adown, and mine heart, now misery-fraught,
Should rest from the evils that Noman hath dealt me,—the good-for-naught.’
Then he sent it from gloom into day: I was clear of the cursed place!
And when we had gotten away from the cavern a little space,
From under the ram did I leap, and then I released each mate;
And we hastily drove his sheep, long-shanked and goodly and great,
Ever heading them needfully, till we had them down to the shore.
Right glad were the others to see their companions appear once more
Who had ’scaped from death, but they set up a wail for those that were dead.
But I would not suffer it yet, and frowning and shaking my head
I forbade them to mourn and weep, but with speed in the galley to stow
The throng of the fair-fleeced sheep, and over the brine to go.
So they entered up into the ship with speed, and sat down to the stroke,
And the sea with the orderly dip of the blades into hoar foam broke.
And when we were so far off that the shout of a man could be heard,
Then I ’gan at the giant to scoff with many a gibing word:
‘Cyclops! no weakling was he whose men thou didst think to devour
In thy dungeon-cave, secure in thine own high-handed power!
Ah, but thine evil deeds were to find thee out at the last!
Wretch, who of guests in thine house couldest make thy fiendish repast!
Despiser of Zeus and the Gods—lo, this is their vengeance-hour! ‘
Then the rage in the monster’s breast was redoubled by mad despair,
And a towering mountain-crest he rent, and he hurled through the air:
And hurtling above us the rock just ahead of the galley fell;
And the sea at the thunderous shock leapt, rolling a mountain swell.
And the sweep of the waves high-surging carried us toward the land,
Backward, still backward urging the ship to the very strand.
Then with desperate grip I seized the pole, and I flew
To the stern, and I thrust the ship clear off and commanded my crew,
Not speaking, but nodding my head, to strain with the oars in flight
From the fate of our comrades dead; and they rowed with their uttermost might.
But when, as we swept o’er the main, we were twice so far away,
I addressed me to speak again a farewell to the giant; but they,
Pleading in gentle strain, one after another ’gan say:
‘Desperate man! why wilt thou provoke unto wrath yet more
A savage, who hurled at our galley but now, and drave her ashore
Well nigh, and we verily thought even then we were all dead men:
And if he had heard but the sound of thy voice, or a word from thee then,
He had hurled with a rugged rock, and had crushed at a single blow
Our heads and the planks of the galley, so far is he mighty to throw.’
Yet could they not overpersuade the wrath that within me burned;
And angry in spirit I said, as again to the giant I turned:
‘Cyclops, if ever a mortal man should ask thee to tell
Of thy blinded eye, and how so shameful a thing befell,
Say that Odysseus destroyer of cities put out thine eye,
Odysseus, the son of Laertes, whose home doth in Ithaca lie.’
So did I speak, and he yelled, and answer he made with his word:
‘Lo! now cometh back unto me a prophecy long ago heard!
Here there abode a man, and goodly and great was he,
Telemus, Eurymus’ son, in the soothsayer’s mystery
Unmatched, and to hoary hairs mid our nation he prophesied.
And he told me that this same thing unto me should hereafter betide,
That I should be robbed of my sight, made blind by Odysseus’ hand.
But ever I looked to behold some hero stately and grand
Hitherward coming, a warrior clothed with a giant’s might:
And now, behold, ’tis a dwarfish, a worthless, a weakling wight,
That hath stolen the sight of mine eye when with wine he had mastered me!
Come hither, Odysseus, that so I may give guest-dues unto thee,
And may pray the Earth-shaker to grant that safe may thy home-track be,
Seeing that I am Poseidon’s son, and my father is he;
And he, if it please him, shall heal me, for he can do it, but none
Beside him, of Gods on high, or of mortals under the sun.’
So he spake, but an answering scoff at the baffled giant I hurled:
‘O that I could but send thee down to the underworld,
Bereft of thy soul and thy life, and that this my power were as sure
As the Earth-shaker’s impotence ever that eye of thine to cure! ‘
Then in his great despair he sent up to Poseidon his cry,
Stretching his hand in prayer to the star-bestudded sky:
‘Dark-haired Earth-shaker Poseidon! O hearken to me in my need,
If I am in truth thy son, and if thou art my father indeed!
May Odysseus the sacker of cities return to his home nevermore,
Even the son of Laertes, whose home is on Ithaca’s shore.
But and if ’tis his weird to behold his friends, and again to stand
In his palace stately-built, on the shore of his native land,
Late, and in evil case, all comrades lost, may he come,
In an alien ship, to find woes waiting him there in his home! ‘
So in his prayer he spake, and the Earth-shaker heard his cry.
Then a rock once more did he take, far huger, and heaved it on high,
And he swung it, and measureless might did he put to it, speeding its flight.
Through the air with his vengeance it hissed, and aft of the dark-prowed ship
Fell, and but barely it missed of reaching the rudder’s tip.
At the down-coming rush of the stone the sea dashed high with a roar;
But the vast swell swept us on, and it drave to the further shore.
And when we were come to the isle where the well-benched galleys lay,
Lo, ranged on the shore they were, and our fellows around them there
Were sitting and mourning the while, expecting us day by day.
So there safe back came we, and we ran up the ship on the strand,
And out on the surf of the sea we stepped, and went up to the land.
And the sheep of the Cyclops then did we land, and divided them all
So that to each of my men an equal share should fall.
But ere they divided the sheep, that ram did my warrior-band
Set by, and they bade me keep for my own: so there on the strand
Unto Zeus the cloudrack-clad did I offer him, burning the thighs.
But the ruler of all things had not respect to my sacrifice,
Ah no, but was purposing then that the well-benched galleys all,
And my brave true-hearted men, should into destruction fall.
So through the livelong day, till the sun’s light faded away,
Sat we feasting upon sweet wine and on meats untold.
And at last, when the sun was gone, and the gloom gathered, fold upon fold,
We lay and slept where the ripples crept to the murmuring shore,
Till the Rosy-fingered, the sweet Dawn, lingered mid mists no more.
Then I arose, and cried to my shipmates, and gave command
To climb each black ship’s side, and to cast her loose from the strand.
So they entered up into the ship, and they sat them down to the stroke,
And the sea with the orderly dip of the blades into hoar foam broke.
Thence stood we out to sea, heavy-hearted leaving the coast,
Glad from the death to flee, yet grieving for comrades lost.