And carried out the lambs
They'd pin you down with a three-cubit collar, And pull your vitals out through your one eye, Torture your back with stripes; then, binding
Throw you as ballast into the ship's hold,
And then deliver you, a slave, to move
Enormous rocks, or found a vestibule.
In truth? Nay, haste, and place in order quickly
The cooking knives, and heap upon the hearth,
And kindle it, a great fagot of wood.-
As soon as they are slaughtered, they shall fill
My belly, broiling warm from the live coals,
Or boiled and seethed within the bubbling caldron.
I am quite sick of the wild mountain game;
Of stags and lions I have gorged enough,
And I grow hungry for the flesh of men.
Nay, master, something new is very pleasant
After one thing for ever, and of late
Very few strangers have approached our cave.
Hear, Cyclops, a plain tale on the other side. We, wanting to buy food, came from our ship Into the neighbourhood of your cave, and here This old Silenus gave us in exchange
These lambs for wine, the which he took and drank,
And all by mutual compact, without force.
There is no word of truth in what he says,
For slily he was selling all your store.
I? May you perish, wretch
Cyclops, I swear by Neptune who begot thee,
By mighty Triton and by Nereus old,
Calypso and the glaucous Ocean-Nymphs,
The sacred waves and all the race of fishes-
Be these the witnesses, my dear sweet master,
My darling little Cyclops, that I never
any of your stores to these false strangers. If I speak false may those whom most I love, My children, perish wretchedly!
I saw him giving these things to the strangers If I speak false, then may my father perish, But do not thou wrong hospitality.
You lie! I swear that he is juster far
Than Rhadamanthus-I trust more in him.
But let me ask, whence have ye sailed, O strangers? Who are you? and what city nourished ye?
Our race is Ithacan.-Having destroyed
The town of Troy, the tempests of the sea
Have driven us on thy land, O Polypheme.
What, have ye shared in the unenvied spoil
Of the false Helen, near Scamander's stream?
The same, having endured a woful toil.
O basest expedition! Sailed ye not
From Greece to Phrygia for one woman's sake?
Twas the gods' work-no mortal was in fault. But, O great offspring of the Ocean King!
pray thee and admonish thee with freedom, That thou dost spare thy friends who visit thee, And place no impious food within thy jaws. For in the depths of Greece we have upreared Temples to thy great father, which are all His homes. The sacred bay of Tænarus Remains inviolate, and each dim recess Scooped high on the Malean promontory,
And airy Sunium's silver-veined crag,
Which divine Pallas keeps unprofaned ever,
The Geræstian asylums, and whate'er
Within wide Greece our enterprise has kept
From Phrygian contumely; and in which
You have a common care, for you inhabit
The skirts of Grecian land, under the roots
Of Ætna and its crags, spotted with fire.
Turn then to converse under human laws;
Receive us shipwrecked suppliants, and provide
Food, clothes, and fire, and hospitable gifts;
Nor, fixing upon oxen-piercing spits
Our limbs, so fill your belly and your jaws.
Priam's wide land has widowed Greece enough;
And weapon-winged murder heaped together
Enough of dead, and wives are husbandless,
And ancient women and gray fathers wail
Their childless age-if you should roast the
And 'tis a bitter feast that you prepare,
Where then would any turn?
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
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,
And drinking pans of milk, and gloriously
Emulating the thunder of high heaven.
And when the Thracian wind pours down the snow
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
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