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Returning from their famous Trojan toils,
To perish by this man, who cares not either
For god or mortal; or I needs must think
That Chance is a supreme divinity,

And things divine are subject to her power.

CHORUS.

Soon a crab the throat will seize
Of him who feeds upon his guest;
Fire will burn his lamp-like eyes
In revenge of such a feast!
A great oak-stump now is lying
In the ashes yet undying.

Come, Maron, come!

Raging let him fix the doom,
Let him tear the eyelid up
Of the Cyclops-that his cup
May be evil!

O, I long to dance and revel
With sweet Bromian, long desired;
In loved ivy-wreaths attired;
Leaving this abandoned home.
Will the moment ever come?

ULYSSES.

Be silent, ye wild things! Nay, hold your peace, And keep your lips quite close; dare not to breathe, Or spit, or e'en wink, lest ye wake the monster, Until his eye be tortured out with fire.

CHORUS.

Nay, we are silent, and we chaw the air.

ULYSSES.

Come now, and lend a hand to the great stake
Within-it is delightfully red-hot.

CHORUS.

You then command who first should seize the stake
To burn the Cyclops' eye, that all may share
In the great enterprise.

SEMICHORUS I.

We are too few ;

We cannot at this distance from the door

Thrust fire into his eye.

SEMICHORUS II.

And we just now

Have become lame-cannot move hand or foot.

CHORUS.

The same thing has occurred to us ;-our ankles Are sprained with standing here, I know not how.

ULYSSES.

What, sprained with standing still?

CHORUS.

And there is dust

Or ashes in our eyes, I know not whence.

ULYSSES.

Cowardly dogs! ye will not aid me, then?

CHORUS.

With pitying my own back and my back-bone, And with not wishing all my teeth knocked out. This cowardice comes of itself—but stay,

I know a famous Orphic incantation

To make the brand stick of its own accord
Into the skull of this one-eyed son of Earth.

ULYSSES.

Of old I knew ye thus by nature; now
I know ye better.-I will use the aid

Of my own comrades-yet though weak of hand
Speak cheerfully, that so ye may awaken
The courage of my friends with your blithe words.

CHORUS.

This I will do with peril of my life,

And blind you with my exhortations, Cyclops.

Hasten and thrust,

And parch up to dust
The eye of the beast
Who feeds on his guest.

Burn and blind

The Etnean hind!

Scoop and draw,

But beware lest he claw

Your limbs near his maw.

CYCLOPS.

Ah me! my eye-sight is parched up to cinders.

CHORUS.

What a sweet pæan! sing me that again!

CYCLOPS.

Ah me! indeed, what woe has fallen upon me!
But, wretched nothings, think ye not to flee
Out of this rock; I, standing at the outlet,
Will bar the way, and catch you as you pass.

[blocks in formation]

CYCLOPS.

I say 'twas Nobody

Who blinded me.

CHORUS.

Why then, you are not blind!

CYCLOPS.

I wish you were as blind as I am.

CHORUS.

It cannot be that no one made

Nay,

you blind.

CYCLOPS.

You jeer me; where, I ask, is Nobody?

Nowhere, O Cyclops.

CHORUS.

CYCLOPS.

It was that stranger ruined me:-the wretch First gave me wine, and then burnt out my eye, For wine is strong and hard to struggle with. Have they escaped, or are they yet within?

CHORUS.

They stand under the darkness of the rock,
And cling to it.

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