Returning from their famous Trojan toils, And things divine are subject to her power. CHORUS. Soon a crab the throat will seize Come, Maron, come! Raging let him fix the doom, O, I long to dance and revel 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 CHORUS. You then command who first should seize the stake 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 ULYSSES. Of old I knew ye thus by nature; now Of my own comrades-yet though weak of hand 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 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! 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, |